1001 Albums Summary

"The Old Gold Shoe" -- sounds like low-volume YLT ("Our Way to Fall" maybe?). Syrupy in a not-too-bad way Production, engineering sounds great. This dude's voice is not my bag (which is why I avoided listening to it when it came out). Strangely felt a little like David Bowie's Blackstar at points -- maybe it's the clean production. But without jazz influence.

I mean. It’s Kid A

Title track sounds closer to Pink Floyd than any PFunk album I’ve heard before. The other songs are a sprawling eclectic mix of soul / funk / rock and experimental music that is infectious. A great listen!

A really unpleasant listen. I bought this album in high school when it came out and remember being impressed with the cleverness of some of his rhymes. But even those lyrics are elementary compared to the subsequent albums. So many of the songs fall back on pure shock value. “Just Don’t Give A Fuck” is probably a favorite because it seems to have the closest thing to a genuine message. If I could give half stars this would get a 1.5 just for the humongous impact this album had and for its impressive use of repeated multi-syllable internal rhyme spurts.

The feat of achieving the level of atmosphere at such an early time in electronic music is astounding. Some of the songs sound a little cheesy or cliche now, but probably just because they were so influential.

A few good ones (Paint it Boack, I am Waiting, High and Dry), otherwise pretty mediocre. The second half is better than the first. Note: I listened to the American version.

Couldn’t finish. REALLY not my cup of tea

Some good instrumentation and lyrics. Hard R n-word loses a star.

The recording preserves the rawness of the songs while also feeling immaculate. The image in my mind of this era of Nirvana is the Unplugged performance and to hear these songs again in their album form brings back that they weren’t that far removed from many of the other grunge /alt rocks acts of the time. I think without the unplugged performance Nirvana wouldn’t have reached the legend status that they have attained in the past 30 years. But, I think this is their best studio release.

“New York, New York” being hyped up in the wake of 9/11 is what turned me off of Ryan Adams. And then him skipping NC on tour for subsequent 5(? 10?) years. But listening to that song now reminds me of the Jason Isbell song “Relatively Easy”, except unlike Isbell’s heartfelt and gut wrenching lyrics, Adams’ song makes me feel nothing. Just dreck. Makes me want to listen to the superior artists he’s imitating (current candidate Van Morrison on “Answering Bell”, later, The Faces on “The Rescue Blues”) The fact that David Rawlings and Gillian Welch’s genius get smeared by the association with this is too bad.

A couple of really good ones. Interesting to hear what I know as a Bangles riff in its original (acoustic!) form. Not all the songs were great. 3.5/5

Joplin’s voice is occasionally great, but the band never is. The band either sounds like a really bad jam band or a mediocre blues band.

Lays a foundation for southern rock and alt country. But a lot of it is schlocky and lame. A couple of bangers though

Pretty, pretty good. Complete blindspot for me.

Somewhere in the nexus of punk and the emerging alternative /grunge wave.

This was a Bjork album. Homogenic was a favorite in high school and I still put it on every once in while and it feels raw and fresh nearly 30 years on. On one listen (maybe not enough), Vulnicura feels like a retread. Lush and beautiful, but no real new territory explored sonically. Postscript: Joanna Newsom's "Baby Birch" auto-played after this album. And with Bjork and Newsom sharing a similar space (unique voice with lush orchestration), I'm struck with how incredible "Baby Birch", compared to anything on the Bjork album I just listened to. My rating: 3/5

There was a kid on my bus in middle school who I didn't particularly like. Did I hang out with him sometimes? Yeah. But something about him rubbed me the wrong way. I think he was going through some shit and I guess I wasn't very empathetic at the time. Anyway, he loved Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath and that kinda put me off of both for years and years. I've come around on both here and there since. I already basically knew that I was missing out on great stuff with Black Sabbath. War Pigs into Paranoid: What a 1-2 punch! Many classics here and the sound is a little more varied than I was anticipating. Not all the songs hit like the classics, but most are great. Not exactly my normal cup of tea, but will definitely be listening again. My rating: 4.5/5

I got this in the Columbia House cd club not too long after it came out. My only knock on this album would be Mista Mista which I’ve never loved, but I guess that was an addition to later versions of the album. 5/5, favorites: Zealots, Ready or Not

The highs (Debaser, Monkey Goes to Heaven, Hey, Goige Away…) are incredibly high and it was insanely ahead of its time and influential. A few duds sprinkled in (Crackity Jones, Mr Grieves, There Goes My Gun) 4.5/5 (will round up for official rating)

A few undeniable pop classics surrounded by bland and/or saccharine songs.

A few classics, not really my thing though.

Loved this one for 25ish years. Great for engaged or background listening. Insanely influential.

Fully expected to be giving this one a 4 or 5 based on the 4-5 songs I knew from it, but most of the rest of the (overlong) album felt like filler.

Great vocals and instrumentals. Wild I’ve never heard of her before

Like a lost early U2 album where they had listened to some Joy Division. I had listened to Ocean Rain before, but never any of these songs. Really enjoyed it!

Opens really great with The Man Comes Around and Hurt. He’s at his best in the songs that fit with the grizzly-voiced rebel aesthetic he’s known for. In My Life doesn’t work for me and some of the other curve balls don’t always hit. Great arrangements and performances by Tom Petty backers Mike Campbell and Belmont Tench.

Clapton sucks. Most of this is ponderous trash. Only reason it’s not 1/5 is Duane Allman.

Really feels dated. Some fun verses. Interesting combo at points of live instrumentals + beats. That said, it’s pretty hokey and repetitive.

3/5 for the most iconic bass line of all time.

Great album with shades of all the influences of mid 70s NYC music: John Cale / VU, Bowie, and John Lennon — and shades of nascent Talking Heads. A few of the experiments didn’t land, but many were excellent. 4.5/5

I’ve owned this one for a long time. Captures lightning in a bottle: both the crowd and the performers.

A couple of good songs (Stan Real Slim Shady) and better production than Slim Shady LP (eg Bitch Please 2). But mostly, this suffers from the same lack of direction that the Slim Shady LP had. It only has a couple of things to say. Stan is a standout song with something unique to say and done in an interesting way. The rest of it is basically "you can't shut me up!"

Microphone check one two what is this? The five foot assassin with the roughneck business I float like gravity, Never had a cavity Real classics on this one. Young Busta to close it out. Some of my all-time favorites in "Excursions", "Buggin' Out" and "Scenario". Some of the middle tracks feel dated, but overall a great one.

Filler. Appropriately named band

Wonderful bridge between punk, alternative, indie and post-punk. Had heard some of it before, but not listened to the album in one sitting before this.

All time favorite. Inspired me to plunk around on the piano in high school. FA doesn’t miss.

Like 70s Dylan with trite lyrics. So still quite good. 3.5/5

A real "Meh" of an album. At the time, this was the album that made me check out on The Black Keys. And I checked out about two songs into this listen. A once-unique sound that they drove into the ground

Good first: many of the instrumental parts are very good. “Cowboy Like Me” was a highlight for me. The last four tracks were the most successful by a longshot. If the last four songs were released as an EP, this would have probably been a four star EP. Other than CLM and a couple of others, the lyrics and vocals all seem mismatched to the songs and are very pedestrian. The more the songs lean into the pop end of things (“long story short”), the less this feels like a cheap imitation of Phoebe Bridgers or other indie-ish folk/country. The track featuring The National was particularly bad, with Matt Beringer singing badly-metered, trite lyrics, it really underlines how lacking the vocal parts are throughout. Beringer can deliver vocal lines with the best of them, but this falls flat. Justin Vernon does a good job on his songs and I get the impression that he has a big hand in the composition of the last couple of songs — they sounded much fuller and more natural.

Exceptional singing, but the songwriting and instrumentation haven't quite caught up.