A masterpiece of shamanic ritual urban apocalypse chant that devastates with its chaos of noise and poetry, laying bare the existential wreckage of late capitalism. JK! This sounds like some bros set out to make a "confrontational" and "off-putting" piece of "art" and having now listened to it in full, I can say this tedious and insipid grind of a record put me off. You did it, guys! (I actually kind of love Drum's Not Dead, so this was a revelation--and not the good kind)

There's a nightclub, empty, except for some reason all the missing people's drinks are on the tables, and smoke still curls through the air. There are two kids with complicated feelings and precocious pop instincts. The nightclub is about seven miles across and three miles high, the kids are recording their songs about a quarter inch from the mics. The rhythm section is tight and plays only exactly what it needs to.

Almost perfect collage of tight beats, hippie-dippy dreams, and folk-hop-edelica. As the immortal Bard wrote: "Going back to Houston / Do the hot dog dance. / Going back to Houston / To get me some pants."

Old weird America gut checks the excesses of 60s psychedelia, and though it rocks, all that mournful organ and cracked three part singing are lonesome, strange, and sad. I mean, hard to think of another album that has more tragic opening and closing songs.

No way I can rate this rationally. I was a huge REM devotee and when this came out I listened to it nonstop. Saw them seven times on the Green tour. I stand by my love of this record: pop irony, hard rock grind, delicate beautiful weirdness. It's probably not even in the top 5 REM albums, but it is for me a 5 star classic.

The Monkees or maybe the Byrds, but amped up and fuzzy, with some dance beats and long solos. Plus acid. Even more acid than the Monkees and the Byrds. I know there's a lot of love for this record, but I listened three times today: while there are some huge hooky gems, there is a fair bit of filler. Hate to lose any Anglophilic cred, but I think this album is overrated.

A masterpiece of shamanic ritual urban apocalypse chant that devastates with its chaos of noise and poetry, laying bare the existential wreckage of late capitalism. JK! This sounds like some bros set out to make a "confrontational" and "off-putting" piece of "art" and having now listened to it in full, I can say this tedious and insipid grind of a record put me off. You did it, guys! (I actually kind of love Drum's Not Dead, so this was a revelation--and not the good kind)

Super 70s tight musicianship, complex white guy blues/R&B/jazz so perfect it must have taken a whole gang of cocaine to get it all together. I don't love Steely Dan, but there are a few really good, interesting, sonically rich songs on this one, as well as a few mid throwaway wank jobs.

I came prepared to hate this. I have held a grudge against UB40 ever since my high school girlfriend taped the insipid overplayed cheesefest 'Labour of Love' over my tape of 'Rain Dogs'. Unforgivable. I gave this a legit listen and the dub elements, honey smooth voiced lead singer, and insurgent politics made some of it pretty okay. But a lot of too long reggae-lite.

Love the sweet soul samples, excellent beats, rich texture, Alvin and the CMs pitched up gospel, and then I realized it's early Kanye before he broke bad. So, now I have mixed feelings. Common sounds great, and while a few of the tracks lack, all in all a good Friday soundtrack.

The kids are looking back on when they were kids, and it is still angsty, grandiose, and chock full of the big feels. The songs are complex--at times verging on busy--and the record is a bit too long, but the whole is punchily raw and honest. I can imagine screaming along at a stadium show, at age 55 recalling myself at 27 looking back on being 16.

John fucking Prine. This record is not a greatest hits collection; it just feels that way. Almost every song on this record is a pure classic: he's funny, he's incisive, he tells stories, he is sad as hell. Seriously, this is better songwriting than 99% of anybody. And I used to feel like Prine was overproduced, but this is gorgeously done. Crushingly good. An American treasure.

Bob who? Blonde on what? Hmm. Intriguing. In all seriousness, c'mon, 10 out of 5 stars. One of the best things ever.

Not a big Beach Boys guy, even though I know that heaps of indie hipsters praise their perfect pop symphonies and this record is always in the top 10 all time lists. The album really is sugary but longing and sad, richly overlapping, soaring, baroque. Some hugely great single songs (I really like Sloop John B and Wouldn't It Be Nice), but some very skippable others. It's like a tiramisu: lots of layers, complexly sweet, with a darker underlying bitterness. And like tiramisu, I would not want it everyday, and there are some empty calories.

Throughout high school, Zeppelin was constantly on. Non-stop, and not played by me--in cars, on radio, everywhere. So it is hard to hear these songs anew, but I tried. I think III is my favourite Zeppelin album, but I will say, what I used to think was trippy acoustic art, now I think the last two songs are meh. But some killers on here.

I have to confess: I have never heard this record before. After OK Computer I was kind of just out on Radiohead. Dips into the subsequent records never grabbed me. And this one didn't really either, though I admire many of its textures, sounds, and ideas. And there are some killer songs, the second one especially. But not grabbed.

I am at the borders of offended, maybe just checking into the hotel of irked, that they made me listen to this. The same drum machine beat, with really bad filler lyrics, between an occasionally okay hook on a few of the songs: super formulaic, dumb as a box of hair (and not in a good way), mediocre at best.

Never have really listened to Eminem, beyond the singles that proliferated on the radio late 90s early 00s. Conceptually wild: self-loathing, hateful, mean-spirited, witty. He so deliberately straddles the line between game and earnest. He's a troll in the pre-troll era. Of its so-muchness, I found it compelling on poverty. The cluttered production has its moments. But I'm not going to buy the album, or probably ever listen to it again. Maybe his misogyny, homophobia, cruelty is ironic, but in this day and age, that might be lost on listeners.

Loved this. Muddy and the whole band sound all loose, reckless, in to it. Mannish Boy is a jam, but tons of the other songs were kicking it. The drummer is an assassin and everybody sounds awesome. Fun one.

I kinda just want to be in that nightclub with a stiff drink in a non-Trumpian era, listening to Vaughan kill it with that spare jazz ensemble. She sounds excellent.

Hurtling chaotic traditional Irish songs with gorgeous writing and ripping energy. And I love Shane's voice. This is a stone cold classic.

Just quickly: I am with EJR here: 20 albums (for me) so far and only one woman in that run, but we are getting a second Arcade Fire record. Admittedly, it is an incredible record: aching, longing, mourning, aging, feeling (a lot). Reminder that songs aren't nouns but verbs. But meanwhile Aretha, Joni, Madonna, Lucinda, Diana, Stevie, Billie, Nina, Chrissie, Tina and so many more need some space in the algorithm.

I love this record. Copeland's drums, some great songs (ignore the cringey "Any Other Day"), early edgy Police sliding into their heyday. And I have always loved 'Walking on the Moon'. Plus, funny story (so you can ignore): after years of not having a turntable, my kid bought me a vinyl LP of this, because he thought we had a record player. Instead of returning it, I bought a turntable. And many records since. And I love it. So 5 stars to the Police.

Occasionally enjoyable hard funk(ish) that sounds like 90s alternative radio to me. Pretty monotonous. A few things: I find the lead singer insufferable in terms of his croony affect and his often dumb ass lyrics. Also, these 90s records often really drag and I wonder if they would have benefited from being released in the vinyl era. CDs can hold too much, and the 45ish max minutes of an LP might have helped them edit. Pass.

Almost all classics. I am not big into S&G but some of my faves on here. Only Living Boy in NY!

Never been wowed by BritPop, even though I was living there in its heyday--maybe that's why: it was on the radio nonstop. So this one feels pretty overrated to me. I know it's blur's masterpiece and all, but even the hits are kind of a drag. I kind of liked "This is the Low" at the end, but quite a few I wanted to fast forward. I'm not Cool Britannia enough to get it

Truly never have even heard of this, which kind of made it fun to figure out as I listened: big bang 80s drums, relentlessly earnest 80s lyrics, and some real easy cheesy listening arrangements, mixed in with flashes of country, synth, drama, and Jeebus. I can't say I liked it, but kind an entertaining experience. Why it's one of the 1001 records remains a puzzle. I guess 1001 is a lot.

She has an amazing voice--obviously--and some of the songs swing for the fences, but I found the album pretty meh. All same tempo, by and large the same kind of big voiced a.m. radio ballads, all of them about lost love long ago, and nary a whisper of wit, humour, complexity--a lot of general platitudinous stuff. Blah. Great vocalist but I wonder if she's a great singer. That said, I mean, if you are coming to Adele, you are coming for amazing vocals about lost love long ago, so....

Wake up in a wooden panelled bungalow in southern California. Headache, blurry vision, mouth full of sand. Cigarette ashes in the shag carpet. The din of Watergate hearings, Bob Dylan covers, and the bitter end of the summer of love rings in your head. Crisped, brittle, tired of it all. Walk to the porch. Sun is glorious, sky crystalline blue, a cool rush of ocean wind. Stare out there until things are clear, ramshackle, epiphanic.