I remember clearly when this record dropped. The first song I heard by this band was "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)," and I can still remember being lit up at the overwhelming energy of it, driving around in my car in LA with Indie 103.1 on the radio. It kinda reminded me of a rootsier PiL. There are only a few times in my life where my ears have pricked up quite like this. Upon hearing the whole thing, I was struck at the balance between lyrical and musical themes of twee, innocent adolescent energy and a sort of hardened, melancholy adult nostalgia evident in the record as a whole. The progression of the track listing is also masterfully considered. It reminds me of when albums were presented as a start-to-finish listening experience rather than to be parsed out and shuffled, which is significant given that this came out during the peak of the iPod era. What an absolutely stunning and epic debut. Extra points for titling your first big record "Funeral."

Funkier than I expected. Would probably rate higher of it was more my taste.

These fellas have a lot of trouble in their relationships.

What a debut. A total vibe. Utterly transportative. The music is kinda secondary to the lyrical narrative and that is a-ok to me....(And it heavily influenced Andrew Eldritch's The Sisters of Mercy, so....)

I have had this record on vinyl since I was a kid. Almost every song on this record is a certified banger. It's one of the most 80s things to ever 80s, especially with that Patrick Nagel cover art. I remember vividly their View To A Kill theme song and when I saw Grace Jones seduce James Bond I experienced an overwhelming pre-adolescent sexual awakening. Then, when we were teenagers, my friend told me she lost her virginity to The Chauffeur. So, basically Duran Duran has been soundtracking boners since forever and I am here for it.

I was more into real British anarcho-punk like CRASS when I was a kid, so the Sex Pistols always seemed like they might as well been a pop band like the Bee Gees or Michael Jackson. More a packaged product and image: only in this case shock for shock's sake, rebellion for sale, fashion over form. I did listen to them a little, but never really sought them out. Nevertheless, as the years have progressed, I can't help but acknowledge the impact they had on practically everyone at the time. Some of my lifelong favorite bands formed after seeing the Pistols live, (Joy Division and Siouxsie immediately spring to mind). I'll give 'em that. This is actually the first time I've listened to this record in its entirety from start to finish, and I still know practically every single song on it. It is without-a-doubt a solid rock record, and yeah, it probably scared the shit out of the establishment rank and file when it first dropped. And that is kinda my problem with it. I imagine there was a lot of pearl-clutching over the Sex Pistols in the mainstream culture and in the press, but we all know that freaking out the normals is not very difficult, (especially back then). In fact, Malcom McLaren and Jamie King are as much a part of their aesthetic legacy as the band itself. So, there is nothing really authentically revolutionary about the music or lyrics to me. Their influence and impact is undeniable, but it also sounds kinda commercial, then and now. Victims of their own popularity, perhaps. And if I check in with my 15 y.o. self, this record still sounds significantly less dangerous, sincere, and genuine to me as Feeding of the 5000, which I had on repeat all the time back when.

Coldplay have a couple standout tracks, but otherwise 99% of their work sounds like background muzak piped into a Starbucks to me. Adult contemporary listening that you just kinda hear more than listen to. This is the first time I've heard this album in its entirety and my thoughts above remain the same. That said, when I was in college and they first hit, my gf at the time, M, had a soft spot for "Yellow" because it reminded her of her sister's new marriage. I remember she thought it was such a dumb song, but it hit her in the feels regardless because she loved her sister so. Because she was the first girl I ever loved, and due to her overwhelming interest in astronomy, I could not help but associate the track with M, myself. So I put the song on a mix for her, downloaded illegally from Napster and burned onto a CD-R, early 2000s-style. And now I'm forever among the ranks of dudes who put Coldplay on a mix for a girl he loves.

First-time listen. This is a good Sunday record, even though the songs all fade out way too soon. The psychedelic elements in this record are great, even though stuff from the 1970s that have sing-songy arrangements with lots of flutes typically give me hives. I'm surprised at how short the songs are given the style; I'd expect them to stretch out a little more. With each successive track, this record really grew on me. The Romani elements heard in the track Dos Cruces were particularly outstanding: sprawling with a great buildup. Gave me epic Brazilian flamenco gunslinger Morricone vibes (but again, cut too short with a unnecessary fade-out).

I typically ignore pop music almost completely coz I detest most of it, but I distinctly remember when this dropped. I recall giving it a shot and being impressed at how experimental and unique this album was as a whole statement and concept. It is anything but boring. It's not something I have spun up again since my first few listens in 2010, but revisiting now it reaffirms that it's a super well-crafted, creative, and considered album. Although it's not typically my preferred style or genre, it's notwithstanding impossible to ignore. Like I said, I mostly hate and consequently write off most pop music due to its banal sameness, but this is such a singular voice of overwhelming creativity, I gotta give Monáe big props for such a unique debut. And "Cold War" is still a fucking total banger, 15 years later; a sort of spiritual sibling to Outkast's "Bombs Over Baghdad". This is an example of a record that I cannot help but recognize has 5-star quality, even though it's not totally my thing.

Seldom has any band in the history of music been so prolific as The Cure, all the while swinging so wildly between mood and genre. Their preceding debut was an energetic post-punk pop record; but this definitive follow-up would determine a feel and a sound the three imaginary boys from Crawley would explore and be known for through much of the rest of their storied career. They have been one of my favorite bands since I was 12, a constant soundtrack to almost my entire life. (Totally not a goth, btw - ha). Seventeen Seconds contains within it such a compelling mood through its compositions and production, that as a listener, I feel transported to the gloomy English landscape in 1980 as soon as the needle drops. Diaphanous mystery and murky allure made audible. They've been encoring live with "A Forest" for almost 50 years and it still sounds fresh and amazing. This isn't even my favorite record by The Cure, but it is still near goddamn perfect.

Totally wild that a 2-Tone-associated band would have a dude in actual blackface on their album cover, but here we are. My girlfriend when I was in high school, (also the first girl I'd ever kissed), curiously mentioned that I looked like Suggs to her. I don't see it now, nor then, so I dunno what she was on about, but cheers all the same I guess, Hot Lips Jenny. My best friend also gave me the domestic US release Madness on CD—which includes most of the tracks on this record—for my 18th birthday. Too bad "Night Boat to Cairo" isn't on this coz it's arguably their best original song. Madness was always a little too sing-songy and poppy for my taste. If I'm gonna listen to 2nd-Wave British Ska (or anything remotely adjacent), I'm going straight to The Specials, The Selecter, or The English Beat. In all honesty, though, I'm probably skipping them altogether and just listening to Prince Buster or Toots and the Maytals, who these cats, especially Madness, were pretty much ripping off. I'm kinda surprised this record, and band in general, are on the 1001 list to begin with. Despite all of the above, I must say the arrangements and time signatures on this record are actually pretty fun for a pop record. There's a lot of creativity and carnivalesque energy here, and I definitely remember hearing "Our House" when I was a kid on KROQ in Los Angeles, so it takes me back a little. But that is about the extent of the charm here. Nevertheless, I haven't spun up Madness in decades, and revisiting it here reaffirms that is probably just fine. By track 11 I just kinda want it to be over, in all honesty. Not bad, but not really for me anymore; and definitely lacking the staying power some of their contemporaries.

I remember hearing "Desire Lines" and "He Would Have Laughed" somewhere, so that was my point of entry for this band. A fantastic introduction, I must say. However, my memory is a piece of mouldering cheese, so it's very possible I have listened to this record before and just forgot. Funny that some of the themes of this record deal with how we remember things. Anyhow, in this release, I'm hearing a big Pet Sounds influence, but with strong lonely, misunderstood, twee, wearing-a-cardigan-in-the-summer-with-a-messed-up-haircut vibes. Also a lot of 60s rock/soul, Phil Spector-style production projected through a modern, angular, shimmering indie rock prism. And I am totally here for it. I like the buzzy, narcotic, lo-fi spacey feel of it; all young and free and drenched in reverb. It reminds me a bit of the sense of discovery I felt when I first heard Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. Although the compositions are quite varied, they still feel unified presented here as a whole. I seldom pay attention to lyrics, but I bet the words are kinda brooding and sad. I can totally see this becoming a classic of the era. I have mistakenly overlooked these guys. Since I'm not that familiar with the rest of their stuff, I will be dedicating the rest of the day to catching up on their entire discography. Di đi mau!

This album is a wacky freakin' ride. Super experimental and strange for a pop record. If i had little crumb-snatching kids I'd probably play this for them all the time and let them get weird with it. This feels like a work you have to treat like watching a movie in the theatre - it demands a fully dedicated listen. Put on some decent cans and just sit there in a chair with your eyes closed, immersed in the production value and compositions. Listening to it while doing practically anything else, however, it's hard to imagine a setting or moment that I would want to soundtrack this with. Perhaps a room with oil lamp projections and wigs and pillows and hallucinogenic substances... (Though, by the time you get to Mrs. O'Leary's Cow the walls and your face would start melting for sure). I think of Pet Sounds as the first emo record and a remarkable time capsule that captured a cultural moment and holds up to just putting on whenever. All of the lore and controversy surrounding SMiLE resulted in a sort of hype that is pretty impossible to ignore; or live up to. That said, this doesn't really do it for me. It feels like a lot of unfinished, half-baked ideas sandwiched and smashed and shoehorned in between two recognizable bookend songs that provide some sort of grounding to anchor the whole exercise. That said, I can nevertheless appreciate that this might be an important piece of work. The experimental, fragmentary deconstruction and reconstruction of Wilson's creative legacy evident here is kinda fascinating. Sure, it's art. But like some some important painting I would never wanna hang on the wall, it's also kinda just a widely-celebrated cultural artifact to me: I really have no idea where it would fit into my listening habits or personal aesthetics.

Despite my best intentions to investigate the work of this zany genius over the years, all I can recall on the spot about Zappa are his novelty tracks "Bobby Brown (Goes Down)" and "Valley Girl"; the latter I no doubt heard on Dr. Demento's show when I was a kid. So here I am finally listening to this funky as hell record I've been seeing in used vinyl bins my whole life, (and just as long loving the cover art with its rad juicy weirdo photo and perfectly kerned Helvetica typeface). And what can I say? I AM GROOVIN' ON THE FREAK SCENE, MANNNN. It's not hard to be transported to the mindset of peak far-out, wig-flipping, hairy jam-out weirdness from when this dropped in '69. But what is also remarkable is to hear the 1:1 influence this has had on modern stuff like Animal Collective, Ween, and King Gizzard. The musicianship is stellar and the compositions are engaging. Definitely of a time and of a place. (It's probably also had an influence on 90s hippie jam bands I can't stand, but you can't win 'em all.) The album ends on a great free jazz skronk-fest, which is fun and chaotic and reminiscent of the stuff I used to do with a band I was in. I probably should have gotten into this more when I was younger and a little more adventurous, but hell , I'll take it at any age. After all, "when the going gets weird, the weird go pro." - Frank Zappa

Adult oriented blues-rock is not really my thing. But I'll tell you whose it is: my mom's. And mom was a big fan of Bonnie Raitt. I grew up begrudgingly listening to a lot of this in the car when I was a kid. Although this record was familiar, I didn't really personally nor aesthetically connect with anything but "The Road's My Middle Name." I wish the album with the cut "I Can't Make You Love Me" was suggested instead because that song is some seriously solid work. All the same, what I did connect with is this: driving around in my mom's car that I recently inherited from her, listening to one of her favorite artists, her photo on the dashboard, remembering her. I might have rolled my eyes at a lot of her mom-rock etc. when I was a kid, but I would give anything to have been in that car listening to Bonnie Raitt with her in the other seat today.

I inherited a very early pressing of this record on vinyl from my grandpa. I don't know what he was doing with it, as he was more of a Marty Robbins and Glen Miller kinda guy. I like to fantasize that maybe he bought it on a lark when it dropped in the 60s as a way to perhaps understand my mom's hippie phase or something, coz I cannot imagine him listening to this and digging it. Either way, it was in very good condition and a crown jewel of my collection. Every track on this release is essential. As great as they all are, it is a bit frustrating now to contend with the shorter lengths for the tracks that were obviously meant for radio play at just under 3:30. You can hear that those songs were intended or even yearning to go longer, but the record company fades them out so they'll fit on one side of a promo 45. I'm looking at you, Purple Haze and Foxy Lady. Speaking of, I remember when I was a young dumb record store clerk once stating that I could sometimes hear the opening riff from Foxy Lady in my head whenever I saw a hot chick walk by. How he captured that in sound I will never fully understand, but it still kinda fits. Thanks grandpa, and thanks, Jimi.

I remember clearly when this record dropped. The first song I heard by this band was "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)," and I can still remember being lit up at the overwhelming energy of it, driving around in my car in LA with Indie 103.1 on the radio. It kinda reminded me of a rootsier PiL. There are only a few times in my life where my ears have pricked up quite like this. Upon hearing the whole thing, I was struck at the balance between lyrical and musical themes of twee, innocent adolescent energy and a sort of hardened, melancholy adult nostalgia evident in the record as a whole. The progression of the track listing is also masterfully considered. It reminds me of when albums were presented as a start-to-finish listening experience rather than to be parsed out and shuffled, which is significant given that this came out during the peak of the iPod era. What an absolutely stunning and epic debut. Extra points for titling your first big record "Funeral."

I know the intention here was to try and make twangy honky-tonk seem hip to the 60s kids, but if I wanted to listen to The Louvin Brothers, I'd just listen to The Louvin Brothers. This all sounds pretty hokey to me, practically to the point of parody. There is, all the same, some pretty stellar musicianship here, but I definitely think these fellas ought to have stuck with the psychedelic sounds they were known for. There are a couple standout tracks for me: Hickory Wind and Lazy Day. Both feature and were written by Gram Parsons, whose compositions and delivery feel more authentic, like he wasn't "trying on" the sound. All in all, I think this release holds up to the record company tagline to promote this when it came out: "This Country's for the Byrds." Uhhhh, yup.

I came into this ready to hate it: I do not like pop music, and I do not like modern country music... at all. 95% of it is just pop and rock music sang with a southern accent. And this is definitely that, if not perhaps just a little elevated. There's a young girl in the midwest or the south, however, wearing a sundress and cowboy boots and a flower crown for whom this is soundtracking her whole life, and for that, I reckon I'm stoked she has this record to lean on. Although I didn't totally hate it, I'm also relieved it's over now. Being into a lot of shoegaze bands, I did appreciate the choice to use an airy, ethereal production quality in a lot of the compositions, but this simply isn't for me. I totally could have died without ever hearing this.

I remember when big beat hit and I was working at Tower Records. It didn't really grab me the way it seemed to grab everyone else. I tended to seek out more adventurous sounds created by Future Sound of London, Ninja Tune artists, and Orbital to get my electronica fix. I know this is their debut so it broke ground, etc., however I emphatically regard Dig Your Own Hole as a way more textural, exciting, and less repetitive record over this one. Some of these tracks seem to only work at 110 dB while you're on MDMA and it shows. That said, Chico's Groove and Alive Alone do indeed seem to capture that pre-millennium sense of hope, wonder, and anticipation, (if only meant as comedown tracks as the sun came up and you were trying to find your car at a desert rave in 1995).

The Thin White Duke persona debuts and with that decides to get superfunky. One of the things I appreciate the most about Bowie is his chameleonic nature, though in truth this isn't my favorite sounding incarnation.