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3.04
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17%
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7
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5
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You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infected | 5 | 2.92 | +2.08 |
| Spiderland | 5 | 2.97 | +2.03 |
| Immigrés | 5 | 3.08 | +1.92 |
| Africa Brasil | 5 | 3.37 | +1.63 |
| Funeral | 5 | 3.57 | +1.43 |
| Ramones | 5 | 3.58 | +1.42 |
| Young Americans | 5 | 3.62 | +1.38 |
| Live At The Witch Trials | 4 | 2.64 | +1.36 |
| Killing Joke | 4 | 2.99 | +1.01 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim | 1 | 3.26 | -2.26 |
| Microshift | 1 | 3.03 | -2.03 |
| The Doors | 2 | 3.95 | -1.95 |
| You Are The Quarry | 1 | 2.86 | -1.86 |
| Elephant | 2 | 3.86 | -1.86 |
| Scott 4 | 1 | 2.8 | -1.8 |
| White Blood Cells | 2 | 3.68 | -1.68 |
| Blur | 2 | 3.33 | -1.33 |
| Meat Is Murder | 2 | 3.31 | -1.31 |
| The Beach Boys Today! | 2 | 3.27 | -1.27 |
5-Star Albums (7)
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Popular Reviews
The Beach Boys
2/5
Oh, Today!? The day after Brian Wilson’s death? That's convenient.
I have as much passing familiarity with The Beach Boys as any active music fan my age. That's to say: I am aware of their hits, saw the cameos on Full House, have heard them praised countless times for their influence, and only partially blame them for the Tate-LaBianca murders.
To me, The Beach Boys have always been the quintessential "We have The Beatles at home" band. The waspy goody two-shoes appearance and falsetto harmonies quickly get cloying, and somehow make The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan performance feel edgy.
I’m sure Pet Sounds will be on this list because that's always cited as their most influential album, so knowing this is (at most) their 2nd most influential album doesn't help my opinion of it. If I'm apathetic about side 1, I'm actively disinterested in side 2. (Sorry Brian, Rest In Peace)
2 likes
Faith No More
3/5
Faith No More is Red Hot Chili Peppers if RHCP hired a heavy metal guitarist and only liked California as a friend.
FNM laid the groundwork for the 'nu-metal' acts of the (very) late 90's and early 00's, which comprised a large portion of my CD case during that time. At that time I only knew "Epic" and didn't fully appreciate how metal the rest of the FNM catalog was. The whole playbook, including the vocal shift from grunting verses to whiney choruses, is present here. But to their credit, this doesn't feel like a band that got together and agreed to just chunk out a bunch of same-y rap metal songs and call it a day. Songs like "Woodpecker From Mars" make a convincing argument that they know how to play their instruments and have some interest in exploring their musical space. To the extent that an album track can be broadly influential, I would argue that this track is one of the earliest examples of post-rock and may have contributed to creating that genre. With several tracks in the 5-8min range, they weren't recording this to be potential radio fodder, and probably could have had more hits if they edited themselves a little more.
I won't call this an easy listen, but it was intriguing and worth my time.
2 likes
Boards of Canada
2/5
My entry point to electronic music was Daft Punk’s Discovery in 2002. This is a far cry from that.
I’m hard pressed to point to any moment of this album that caught my attention, so I’d put this firmly into the “background music” category… The grandfather of the ‘Chill Electronic Study Music’ Playlist, perhaps.
1 likes
Primal Scream
3/5
I had no idea what to expect here, but it certainly wasn't what I got. I had to listen to this a few times to decide what I really thought about it (I kinda like when that happens). Ultimately, it feels like two different albums shuffled together; one part is straightforward brit-pop, and the other is experimental electronic music. I actually like parts, but the constant juxtaposition makes it difficult to get into. The only way this really makes sense to me is as the soundtrack to a movie I'm, unfortunately, not watching. I know that's the idea behind "Kowalski", but I feel like it applies to the whole album.
Call-outs:
"Star" - sounds like it had direct influence on future Gorillaz recordings.
"Medication" - if you told me this was a Rolling Stones cover, I'd believe you.
I didn’t dislike it enough to take away stars, but I don’t like it enough to give it extras; so this gets a baseline score.
1 likes
The Boo Radleys
3/5
This album is kind of all over the place. I was initially encouraged by the number of reviews I saw where people expected not to like this and were won over; I'm not sure that was my experience. This album certainly has its moments, but it's a looong one with a lot of moments. It felt like it went from track 1 to track 5 in the blink of an eye, and then when I thought I must be close to the end of the album, I was only on track 12 (of 17).
The Boo Radleys are pretty clearly nostalgic for the late 60s - both the brit-pop of Beatlemania and the more psychedelic stuff (like yesterday's Byrds album). But in the next moment they us a much more 90s version of distorted guitar to kick off the next song or what I've dubbed "The Jurassic Park Orchestra" of dinosaur noises to end one.
Based on the 90s brit-pop albums I've heard so far in this project, none of this is all that unusual. There must have been something in the water over there. I appreciate why people find this appealing, but I struggle to feel nostalgia for a 90s band who's whole shtick is nostalgia for bands of the 60s. To me, this feels like it's taking a lot more inspiration than it's giving out.
1 likes
1-Star Albums (5)
All Ratings
The Residents
1/5
Maybe avant-pop isn't for me... at least not this kind.
While I'm positive that songs like Lizard Lady, Birthday Boy, and Hello Skinny made major impressions on Les Claypool, they don't hold me enough to warrant a revisit of this album in the future. I did save Birthday Boy on Spotify just in case I need to ruin somebody's big day.
Cocteau Twins
3/5
The beginning of this album felt like walking into the middle of a set, so I’m not surprised to read that this was their 6th album. This probably feels great for established fans, but a little disorienting for new listeners.
Overall, this is an easy listen. It isn’t really my thing, but I can appreciate its place in time and the influence it must have had on later UK pop-rock artists.
Ray Charles
3/5
I mostly know Ray from his Diet Pepsi commercials in the 90’s, so it’s nice to get a better feel for his catalog. Really surprised that I didn’t get a copy of this album when I inherited my grandparents vinyl collection 15 years ago. All in all, an easy listen that I could see myself revisiting under the right circumstances (cocktail hour)
The xx
3/5
If you've consumed popular media in the last 15yrs, you've probably heard the first 4 songs from this album. Beyond that, the album will feel brand new if you can stay awake for it.
Also- I refuse to believe the intro isn’t a Blue Man Group track.
Snoop Dogg
3/5
This is one of those albums that I’ve always known I *should* listen to, but never quite got around to. This was a little before my time, plus I was east coast biased when I started getting into hiphop in the late 90’s. Obviously I’ve heard many of these songs over the years, but it’s fun to finally catch-up on the full album… even if the lyrics (and Snoop's politics) might be divisive today. It holds up better if you don’t listen too closely and just surf the vibes.
David Bowie
4/5
This starts out like a love letter to The Beatles, but becomes more David Bowie(TM) over the course of the album. I'm not steeped enough in early 70's pop-rock to know if that was the dominant sound at the time, or if Bowie was particularly fixated on echoing the Liverpudlians.
If I inherited a vinyl copy of this album it would probably get some spins, but I'm not sure I'd buy a copy. Likewise, if I had a copy of this (or, more likely, a greatest hits CD) when I was in my "classic rock phase" in high school, I think I would have really gotten into it. Maybe I need to dig into the catalog more.
The Beach Boys
2/5
Oh, Today!? The day after Brian Wilson’s death? That's convenient.
I have as much passing familiarity with The Beach Boys as any active music fan my age. That's to say: I am aware of their hits, saw the cameos on Full House, have heard them praised countless times for their influence, and only partially blame them for the Tate-LaBianca murders.
To me, The Beach Boys have always been the quintessential "We have The Beatles at home" band. The waspy goody two-shoes appearance and falsetto harmonies quickly get cloying, and somehow make The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan performance feel edgy.
I’m sure Pet Sounds will be on this list because that's always cited as their most influential album, so knowing this is (at most) their 2nd most influential album doesn't help my opinion of it. If I'm apathetic about side 1, I'm actively disinterested in side 2. (Sorry Brian, Rest In Peace)
Amy Winehouse
3/5
Oh, Amy.
I’ve dabbled in her catalog, but haven’t listened to this full album before. As a concept, I think I’m really interested in early 00’s HipHop/R&B lyrics sung over classic jazz (sometimes leaning bossa nova?) instrumentals. For the most part, the frankness of the album doesn’t rise to a level that would get Amy canceled today, but Stronger Than Me sets a problematic(tm) early tone and casts a slight shadow over the rest of the album.
In any case, it’s no wonder that the world took notice of Amy here. A 19 year old who ‘writes it like it is’ and then tells you about it with pipes like these is certainly someone to take notice of, and the classic instrumentals make sure she doesn’t get overlooked in a semi-crowded early 00’s Pop/R&B space.
If I zone out the lyrics a little bit, the vibes are great for a cocktail hour album, except that it’s difficult to unwind when I’m being called a ladyboy, or gay, for having feelings. Maybe Amy’s views on that would have softened by now if she was still with us. We can hope, but we’ll never know.
Killing Joke
4/5
This band was not at all on my radar, and I’m a little upset about that. I spend a fair amount of time listening to “classic” punk, but maybe this leans too far into Metal or Post-Punk and that’s kept it out of my algorithms? In any case, it’s a joy to get to discover this after a week of albums that meandered through less interesting genres.
Musically, this feels surprisingly well put together for a group of kids playing live-to-tape in a studio in 1980. It certainly feels like a band comfortable in their sound, and I’m very interested in hearing more of their discography to see how that develops more over time. Albums like this are why I started this project.
The White Stripes
2/5
In highschool (when this came out) I used to keep a physical list of all the CDs I wanted to buy, and this was certainly on that list. Unfortunately, my budget only stretched so far and I never managed to buy this one. Being familiar with all the singles from this album, I was excited to dig into the full album. Sadly, beyond those singles, many of the album tracks never needed to be recorded. It feels like they wrote an incredibly solid EP, and then pulled in some studio goof-arounds to fill out for LP length. “Little Room”? “I Think I Smell a Rat”? Both of these could (should) have been bonus tracks stuck on the end of the last track a la Green Day’s “All By Myself”. Sometimes recording an album in a week isn’t something to brag about.
I say all that, and then I wonder if The Black Keys would have made it out of Ohio without the commercial success of The White Stripes …I truly don’t know and it may keep me up tonight.
An influential album, to be sure, but I had hoped for some new hidden gems to celebrate.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
4/5
First off, I'm blown away by the album art (pun intended). If there was a more punk rock album cover put out in 1958, please send it to me. This is worth owning on vinyl just to have the sleeve.
I love big band music, but I have spent no meaningful time digging into specific albums. This was a pretty easy listen for me, and a good way to start an overcast/drizzly Monday. It's certainly an "in your face" version of this kind of music, so you better be ready to go with that energy.
"The Kid From Red Bank" punches you in the gut to start the album, so I appreciate that it's followed by "Duet" and "After Supper" which help you catch your breath and get into the Swing of things (pun clearly intended). Once you're back on your feet, "Flight of the Foo Birds" starts swinging again and doesn't stop until "Midnite Blue". Finally, you get a break again. Ok, it's only been 13 minutes, but in this weird fight analogy I've apparently committed to, that's a long time! This notable change of pace made "Midnite Blue" stand out to me on first listen, more than either of the earlier slow songs. From here "Splanky" speeds things up again, but it knows you're tired and your feet are moving slower than they did in the earlier rounds. "Fantail" follows a little quicker, just to see if you have one last spar in you, and "Lil Darlin'" sees you slowly shuffle back to your corner to await the decision.
Does any of this make sense? Of course not. I should have written this like a dance card, not a fight card, because that's a much more normal way to analyze the pacing of an album. Beyond that, why is the first track compared to one punch, some tracks are full rounds, and some are something in between? Great question. Maybe 7 people will ever read this far anyway, so I don't feel particularly compelled to fix it at this point.
Overall, a fun listen, and a good excuse to poke around the Count Basie discography today.
Billy Bragg
2/5
I can't tell you if Woody Guthrie would have liked this, but I’ll tell you I did not. I appreciate the project at hand, but don’t love the execution. I think this may have worked better if every track was a full collaboration, instead of sending two musicians off to each work on 1/2 an album.
Some tracks are better than others, but I'm hard pressed to pick a standout. If anything, "Birds and Ships" (Track 4, featuring Natalie Merchant) felt like the low point. There is no connective tissue in how the first side of this album is laid out and it feels like they're throwing everything at the wall to see if something would stick. "Hoodoo Voodoo" continues the disparate trend and it's not until "She Came Along to Me" that they start cycling through approaches again and things feel more familiar. They never bring in another guest vocalist though, so Natalie holds the honor of being the only cameo on the whole album. The only track I noticed in the back half was "Eisler On The Go", where the haunting vocal performance forced me out of my malaise for a few minutes. Sadly, it goes straight into the upbeat "Hesitating Beauty" and quickly forgets the mood it just created (again).
The album finally closes with "The Unwelcome Guest" which certainly lives up to its name. The harmonies (I use the word loosely) will encourage you to leave as soon as possible and make sure you think twice about coming back.
I guess someone liked this enough to bring everyone back to do it two more times. I’ll never know if those sessions went better.
Joan Baez
2/5
Joan has a lovely voice and it's easy to see how this album influenced decades of folk artists and singer-songwriters that came after her. There's too many bible-centric songs for me, and even if I set those aside, I struggle to connect with anything. Standouts for me: "House of the Rising Sun", "El Preso Numero Nueve", and "Girl of Constant Sorrow"(I know this was added later).
I could see Joan having a captivating live presence. Maybe not "captivating" in the sense that she holds 100% of your attention, but her vocal modulation makes it difficult to ignore her for very long before she requires your attention again. I wish this quality was moderated a little bit for the recording. The range of volumes here makes this a difficult pre-coffee listen. Between that and the three different typefaces on the album cover, I'm really struggling this morning.
Boards of Canada
2/5
My entry point to electronic music was Daft Punk’s Discovery in 2002. This is a far cry from that.
I’m hard pressed to point to any moment of this album that caught my attention, so I’d put this firmly into the “background music” category… The grandfather of the ‘Chill Electronic Study Music’ Playlist, perhaps.
The Kinks
3/5
My primary exposure to The Kinks is their “Kinks” album, so this was not what I expected.
The album opens like a tribute to (copy of?) Sgt. Pepper, so listeners in 1968 may have been forgiven for quickly passing summary judgement on this one. If I didn’t know I was listening to a Kinks album (and have a reasonable grasp of the Beatles catalog), it would be easy to mistake “Picture Book” as a lesser known Beatles song.
Fortunately, “Johnny Thunder” starts to turn a corner, and by “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains” they are finally in their own lane. Which is to say, at least here, somewhere between The Beatles and The Who.
For my part, I guess I wish there were a little less harpsichord and a few more rock’n’roll tracks like “Wicked Annebella”, or blues-rock tracks like “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains”.
Bad Company
4/5
When this album finished, the first song Spotify played was Led Zeppelin's “The Ocean” (Houses of the Holy, 1973). It’s a little wild think about this album and that one being only 1 year apart. Where Zeppelin still feels very much like proto-hard rock, Bad Company feels like a more polished next step in the progression of rock’n’roll. Strange/interesting that BC was the first act signed to LZ’s record label. But when I step back, Bad Company sounds more like a descendant of Deep Purple, who were doing a version of this sound since the late 60’s (and who Paul Rodgers almost fronted before starting BC).
For their part, Bad Company did craft a monster rock’n’roll album here. 50 years later, almost all of these songs feel familiar (“The Way I Choose” & “Seagull” being the exceptions), which says a lot. A very easy listen for me, even if I hate to admit enjoying Dad Rock. Maybe I should have taken Bad Company more seriously in my classic rock phase.
Neil Young
4/5
I love Neil Young because he makes me feel like I could have been professional musician too; if Neil can get paid to sing, maybe anyone can.
This album is full of the kind of misanthropic folk/blues/rock that I would have eaten up during my frequently mentioned Classic Rock Phase(TM). Unfortunately, I never made it past Buffalo Springfield or the popular notion that Neil’s solo catalog was as hit-or-miss as it was diverse. Case in point - a song from his newest album, Talkin to the Trees, was recently suggested as the worst song of the 2025. Ouch. Fortunately, this album feels like it falls on the opposite end of the spectrum.
First listen standouts for me include “Revolution Blues” and “On The Beach”. The former feels ripe for a good cover, and the latter has a groove I could swim in for much longer than it’s 7min runtime (which feels absolutely wild to say about a song that long). I’ll also give an honorable mention to “Walk On”, but it has an aggressively Niel Young vocal performance that could turn away casual listeners right away. But here again, the track feels ripe for a good cover.
I was excited that this could be my first no skip album of the project, but “Ambulance Blues” blew the no hitter in the ninth inning. And if we’re skipping one, then I might consider skipping “See The Sky About To Rain” as well, if only because it’s keeping me from all the tracks I like in the heart of the album. Maybe we axe Ambulance Blues and move this one towards the end for a more bulletproof album?
Overall, this was a fun discovery, and a nice way to start my Sunday morning. I can see myself revisiting this album, and I look forward to more Neil Young in this project (at least Harvest, I assume).
3/5
On paper I probably should have been a Muse fan. I can’t really tell you why I’m not, except that something about them just didn't work for me... too fake, maybe? Or too pretentious?
This isn’t their debut album, and it shows. This feels like a band very comfortable weaving together an extremely complex sound, or one with enough label money to hire a really slick producer. Having never heard their earlier albums, I have little doubt I’d enjoy them more than this one and then complain that BH&R was the beginning of their big sellout. Nevertheless, this is a very solid, if soulless, commercial-minded rock’n’roll record with all the cinematic flourishes you need for a big stadium tour (plus countless commercials and TV soundtracks). I can practically hear the pyrotechnics and the flutter of A&R professionals. Muse feels like what would happen if Coldplay took amphetamines instead of opioids. It's music for junior finance bros to do cocaine to.
Thin Lizzy
3/5
How excited did people get for live albums before YouTube made it easy to get clips of bands playing live? I guess it's fitting that I had to listen to this album on YouTube because Spotify didn't have all the tracks available.
Typically I skip live albums in favor of 'best of' albums (or playlists) with all the studio tracks, but I'm glad I had to give this one a shot. To be clear, I do appreciate live music, but I feel like I have to turn the volume way up on live albums to get a full appreciation for the experience and that's a commitment I'm not usually willing to make. That said, I'm sure there's a pantheon of the greatest live albums of all time and that I should spend more time with that list.
I'm a little dismayed to read about the controversy surrounding this album and how much of it was or wasn't overdubbed. For me, that really blunts how much I 'm able to appreciate this album. This sounds like a really great tour, but is this really what a concert would have sounded like? Without that additional knowledge I think I would have become very bullish on Thin Lizzy after this. I'm still curious to dig into their studio recordings a little more, but will always wonder how much studio magic is involved.
Ray Charles
4/5
Is this the 1962 equivalent of Cowboy Carter or Lil Nas X? Sixty years later, these songs do not sound at all controversial but I'll believe what I've read about how many feathers were ruffled at the time. Conversely, it's also hard to wrap my head around everything I've read about how influential this was in mainstreaming (and influencing) country music.
There were only a few moments in this album where I could hear the country bleeding through in the arrangements, otherwise this played like a pretty standard album of early 60's R&B/Soul/Pop crooning, just based on country songs. I could have done with fewer violins, but I understand that was a thing at this time.
I feel like I appreciate this as much as I appreciated "The Genius of Ray Charles" when I listened to that but I understand that this album is probably more culturally significant and thus more necessary pre-death listening. That makes rating complicated. In any case, I’m glad I held back a little bit on my 'Genius' review so I can say it here: Ray Charles was a visionary. Someone get this guy a Diet Pepsi.
Britney Spears
2/5
I was extremely unexcited when this album came up today. I am, unfortunately, tangentially VERY familiar with this one because I had a sibling who was a huge Britney fan. We all even saw her live in Chicago at one point. I also watched a lot of TRL in ‘99/‘00. All that to say, for someone who was/is not at all into this kind of music, I know way too much of this album already. Nevertheless, here we go…
The beginning of this album (“…Baby One More Time” through “Sometimes”) will not be new to anyone who lived through the Y2K crisis. They were big ol’ pop hits and I don’t have much to say about them. Next up are the real time capsules… “Soda Pop” is so late-90’s it hurts. Why are we skatting here? Didn’t we get enough of this with Mmmbop? Apparently not, much to Shaggy’s delight a few years after this. Next is the equally late-90’s “Born To Make You Happy”, which gives me big yikes in 2025. This is probably still celebrated as a Trad Wife anthem in certain circles, but I want nothing to do with it. Next, I think “From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart” was also a single, or maybe it was just a local favorite in my house. Either way, and that track helps reset things a little bit. But after that, the rest of the album feels remarkably unremarkable. “Email my Heart” is the the possible exception, but only because its premise is too corny to ignore.
I know she didn’t write any of these songs, and was only ~19 when they were recorded, so I won’t fault her too much for the questionable decisions here. This isn’t an album I’ll be revisiting, but it was kinda fun(?) to force myself to give it a full listen all these years later.
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
I'm impressed by how cinematic this album is. Obviously I've heard all the singles (and probably more) over the years, but this is the first time I've sat with the whole thing. And considering the musical landscape of 1993, I can't help but be even more impressed. Certainly compared to Nirvana's In Utero (also 1993), this record is going a completely different direction. Where Nirvana doubled down on their bread&butter grunge sound, The Smashing Pumpkins are leaning into a much more expansive sound. Listening back to Gish (1991), I can hear elements that hint at an enhanced grunge sound, but Siamese Dream moves that sound out of grunge's shadow.
I’m not sure I need to revisit this whole album, but it’s certainly deepens my respect for the band.
Derek & The Dominos
3/5
This feels like it should be a live album. I know you can’t create a new band nobody’s ever heard of and release a live album as your debut, but I kinda wish that’s what this was. The whole second half of Layla is a pretty obnoxious thing to record, but I’m sure it went incredibly hard in concert.
Beyond that, writing a whole album about how much you love your best friend’s wife is a crazy thing to do. Especially when you include a song that explicitly says so (see: “Have You Ever Loved A Woman?”). It’s even more crazy that it eventually worked out.
As a (former?) guitar player, Clapton will always have my respect, but ultimately this album spends more time jamming than I need it to.
Big Star
3/5
This record is for a much sadder day than today, but I’m trying to connect anyway.
“Stroke It Noel” is the stand out track from my first listen. I’m excluding “Femme Fatale” because it’s a cover and I’m not sure it’s better than the original.
Ultimately, I don’t hate it, but I don’t think I’ll revisit this one many times. I noticed nothing from this album is in Big Star’s most popular songs on Spotify, so I think I’ll see what the other albums are like. Three big stars feels appropriate.
Supertramp
3/5
Soft-core Prog-Rock, but like, not in a bad way? By today's standards, this is classic Yacht Rock(TM), for sure.
I know "Dreamer" was the single, but wikipedia claims that "School" and "Bloody Well Right" are the more enduring hits. It's hard to argue with that as I find Dreamer pretty cloying after about 30seconds. I can’t see School as a hit but as an album opener, you could do far worse. Portions of Bloody Well Right feel like they had direct influence on Pink Floyd's Animals (1977), which surprised me at first. I am much more familiar with the latter, so hearing similar sounds caught me off guard here.
At ~45min, this is a very manageable prog-rock album that never feels like it goes off on a big space voyage for too long despite the slightly ominous album cover or the threatening “will he take a sailboat ride?" in the chorus of “Asylum”. We get harmonicas, saxophones, talkbox guitars, Wurlitzers, all the things I wish we still heard more often. I don't know if I need to revisit this whole album, but I'll spend some more time with Supertramp.
The Doors
2/5
I knew The Doors would come up at some point, so part of me is glad to check one off the list.
I'm not a Jim Morrison fan. If I could somehow listen to this album without wincing every time he launched into his signature overly theatric vocals, there’s a possibility I’d enjoy some of these songs. Hell, if they just mixed everything differently to make Jim and the organ less prominent, I might be able to enjoy this more.
I understand how influential The Doors were, but I just can't get past Jim. Maybe that will change with later albums, but I kinda doubt he got less obnoxious as he got more famous. The saving grace is that they influenced a lot of later acts who managed to tweak the recipe and make enjoyable music.
I don't have many specific notes about this album. The hits were the hits. You know them, you have feelings about them. "Twentieth Century Fox" feels like a warm-up for "Light My Fire" - without the tempo difference, they open with essentially the same melody and that's all I could think about. Somewhere during "The End" I started looking for the ffwd button. The 45min runtime for this record felt like it meandered more than it needed to; the opposite of yesterday's Supertramp album.
Rufus Wainwright
2/5
I don't understand why this is on the list. I don't say that to be mean, but I can't hear anything here that feels different or more influential than other singer-songwriter albums of this time, or decades before. Maybe the devil is in the details and I am too bored to listen for those details. Rufus Wainwright sings like a sad teenager who only owns Thom Yorke and Chris Martin records.
The album opens with a dirge that really set a tone I couldn't get past. I can't pick out any hits, and there are a lot of songs that feel like they would be that final slow song you'd play to end a concert, but then it keeps going. Makes for a long hour, and probably an even longer concert.
Orbital
3/5
After Boards of Canada, I was not extremely excited to get into another early electronic album. This one, however, is a little more my speed. I had friends who made electronic music in the early 00s, and this feels remarkably similar to what they were making even a decade later. I guess that's triggering a sense of nostalgia in me, even though I've never listened to this particular album nor do any raving in the 90s.
Supergrass
3/5
I’ve never heard of this band, but I’ve heard “Alright” in plenty of tv/movie scenes. I listened to this one twice and still don’t know how I feel about it. For the most part, I enjoyed this but don’t see myself revisiting the album or any of their others.
LTJ Bukem
3/5
A lot of reviews mentioned that Spotify doesn’t have the correct tracks for this album, so I went to YouTube and I think I found it(?). If so, it seems like an enjoyable set but difficult for me to get into through all the YouTube ads.
Morrissey
1/5
If you can put aside your feelings about Morrissey as a person, I think this album can help you just hate him as a musician too.
You couldn’t even parody this album because Morrissey is cartoonishly self loathing and whiney in a way that doesn’t feel humble, it just feels like the melodic pouting of a narcissist. It feels shockingly self-aware, but I can’t decide if he is or not. If he wasn’t already a rich, famous, middle-aged white man, I can’t imagine this album ever seeing the light of day.
But alas, here it is ruining my otherwise nice Sunday. To adapt a phrase from my grandma (and Lucille Ball): “If that’s the kind of album you wanted, you sure got a good one.”
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
This was exactly the kind of thing I needed to start an overcast Monday. This was fun and an easy listen, while still feeling a little edgy (see track two). Plenty of hits on this one, so I’m sure a lot of white people bought this and got a little bit of a surprise when they dropped the needle. Ya love to see it. This isn’t a genre I spend a lot of time with, but if I had this record, I think I’d play it semi-regularly.
AC/DC
3/5
Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning, because of course he did. AC/DC is high art for people who have to worry about things like that - people who answer the question ‘what’s your favorite kind of music?’ with “Loud!”
Verses be damned, the only thing that matters is that the chorus is simple and repetitive enough that you can start singing along the first time through. If that’s the kind of music you want, AC/DC is absolutely your kinda band. This is not a band for anyone interested in reading lyrics or thinking about themes; this whiskey is for shooting, not for sipping.
I truly don't know if I mean all of that in a good way or a bad way, and I guess that's the genius of AC/DC.
Primal Scream
3/5
I had no idea what to expect here, but it certainly wasn't what I got. I had to listen to this a few times to decide what I really thought about it (I kinda like when that happens). Ultimately, it feels like two different albums shuffled together; one part is straightforward brit-pop, and the other is experimental electronic music. I actually like parts, but the constant juxtaposition makes it difficult to get into. The only way this really makes sense to me is as the soundtrack to a movie I'm, unfortunately, not watching. I know that's the idea behind "Kowalski", but I feel like it applies to the whole album.
Call-outs:
"Star" - sounds like it had direct influence on future Gorillaz recordings.
"Medication" - if you told me this was a Rolling Stones cover, I'd believe you.
I didn’t dislike it enough to take away stars, but I don’t like it enough to give it extras; so this gets a baseline score.
Eels
4/5
Mathematically it's impossible for Mac Miller to have fronted this band, but if you told me this was released in 2016, you could have convinced me.
I think I would have loved this album had I found it in middle school; it's the right amount of catchy pop/rock mixed with a pre-teen level of edginess that would have really scratched my brain in the late 90s. Maybe I'll pretend that happened and I'll retroactively start including this in my pantheon of formative classics. Delving into the rest of their catalog has also been fun, I'm sad it took so long for me to find this band.
Elliott Smith
3/5
I can appreciate that Elliott Smith, and likely this album, were hugely influential for a generation of disaffected "art kids" and countless early-00's emo bands. This album feels like a collection of that one slow acoustic song that every rock band has towards the back of their album. Like a Cap'n Crunch's OOPS! All Berries(R) of acoustic proto-emo, minus the sugar.
If someone gave me a burned copy of this in highschool, I'm sure it would have resonated and frequently been in the 3Disk CD player next to my homework desk. Instead, the longest running rotation I can remember was: Jimmy Eat World's Clarity, Beulah's The Coast Is Never Clear, and Pete Yorn's Music For The Morning After... All considerably less depressing than this, which was probably for the best. Unlike I was in highschool, I'm not in a place in my life where I can fully embrace ES anymore. I don't think I'd revisit this album but I don't regret listening to it and I hope Elliott rests in peace.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
This project is missing an editor. I don’t feel like I needed any of this, so a double album is… a lot. This is basically two single albums packaged together: one album where she covers standards over hip-hop beats, and one album of originals where she’s backed by a swing band, orchestra, and/or choir. See what she did there?
Call-outs:
“Thank You (Dedicated To Fans…)” is sprinkled with audio clips of her fans praising her and feels more self-indulgent than humble.
“Candyman” is like a swing version of Britney Spears’s “Soda Pop” but somehow even worse.
Is “The Right Man” about her new husband or her daddy issues? Both? That’s neat.
Fever Ray
2/5
As a vibe, I enjoyed this album; especially once the day turned overcast and rainy. But in my second listen, I started to have issues with the component pieces.
Much of this sounds like things I used to do in FL Studio back when I was tinkering with elmy own electronic music. Obviously there’s some extra parts and polishing here that I never mastered, but the basic melodies and drum parts aren’t that much more advanced. Beyond that, I kind of wish I didn’t know English very well and could just treat the vocals like another instrument on this record. I don’t think the lyrics are very good, and part of me wonders what if Fever Ray actually speaks English. Somehow, both of these things work well enough together to make pretty acceptable background music. Not high praise, I know, but I’m working with what I’m given.
Paul McCartney and Wings
3/5
I assume the title is an allusion to the band members who bailed right before the album was recorded?
I’m not going to spend too much time debating post-Beatles McCartney vs Lennon projects. Music isn’t zero-sum and there’s room for both to be appreciated for what they are. In this case, we’re appreciating a pretty lightweight offering. This probably isn’t a record I’d seek out, but I think I’d play it occasionally if I had a copy. It’s a sunny Saturday morning kinda record… not the kind you deep clean the house to, but the kind you put on while you get ready for a day out.
“Band On The Run” & “Jet” put the hits right up front so you can listen before you get too distracted.
“Let Me Roll It” breaks the vibe just enough to remind you that you’re gonna have to flip the record in a minute (well played, Paul).
“Mamunia” restarts the vibe sesh on side2 just long enough for you to go back to whatever you were doing.
“Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five” is one last banger to go out on. Kinda like an ‘NPR Driveway Moment’ where you stand there and let it finish playing before you move onto your next thing.
Or, just stream it on your phone and don’t worry about all that. Idk.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
This album sounds how the cover looks. Like someone attempting to mimic Picasso but gets nervous that audience won't get it if it's too abstract. Or maybe it's like the adult jokes in Disney movies and I'm just not smart enough to know there are things going over my head. I'm sure there's some real art here because I've read a few extremely nerdy reviews that say so, but I can't find it.
I feel like it would be more accurate to call them Elvis Costello and the Distractions. Elvis's voice is passable when he's shouting over a cacophony of noise, but as soon as then slow the tempo down and pare back the instruments, his voice is kinda bad. "Almost Blue" really hurt me. I didn't really love "Little Savage", "Boy With A Problem", or "Town Cryer" either, but otherwise was able to bop my head and go along with the circus.
Mariah Carey
2/5
Oh boy, this really drags me back to the old Carson Daly TRL days. This feels very much like a tale of two albums; one part late 90s Pop/R&B, one part Adult Contemporary. I'm not sure I love the former, but definitely don't care for the latter. If this album didn't start the trend of stretching every high note into a full scale just to flex your vocal skills, it was certainly on the front end. Almost 30 years later, pop music hasn't recovered.
Cowboy Junkies
4/5
This was a surprise. I'm sure I've heard a few of these songs nestled into a TV show here or there, but I couldn't have told you anything about Cowboy Junkies before today. Now I know they are the foundation of any David Lynch (or David Lynch inspired) project’s soundtrack. It's not music that you'd sit and watch... If they were playing any venue larger than a bar, I don't think I'd go. But as sad background music (especially for drinking), you could do a lot worse. I could easily see myself listening to this on a quiet Saturday morning/evening at home, or while cooking dinner after a long day.
Pixies
3/5
Before I even pressed play, I wanted to like this album and confirm my alt/punk bonafides. For the most part, I did like it, but I guess I didn’t love it. I guess I’m not as cool as I had hoped.
“Where Is My Mind?” - there’s a reason this has 1Billion Spotify listens. It’s an anthem, but it’s an outlier on this album; I kinda hate when the one non-representative song gets pulled to be the single. Also slightly frustrating because “if you can do THIS, why are you spending so much time doing THAT?”. The inclusion of this song makes the rest of the album (especially the tracks after it) sound worse.
“Vamos (Surfer Rosa)” - you can’t make me listen to this whole track. I tried twice and it can’t be done; the guitar solo is insufferable.
The Associates
2/5
A lot of this album feels like game show demo music. The rest of it manages to feel like every 80s new wave trope rolled together, and it was still only 1982! I don’t know if that says something about how influential this album was, or my perception of pop music in the 80s. I’m not sure I buy the argument that this album had a meaningful influence on the later development of electric music.
“Arrogance Gave Him Up” - 100% game show music.
“No” - title sums up my thoughts.
“Gloomy Sunday” - objectively the least good song about Sunday to come out of the 80s.
“Club Country” - sounds like someone doing karaoke of this song, but that’s just the song.
“18 Carat Love Affair” - another theme song for a show that didn’t exist.
Giant Sand
3/5
I enjoyed this. Maybe that’s not a surprise since I’ve previously rated Neil Young, Cowboy Junkies, and Eels favorably. It’s certainly not an album for everyone, but it works for me.
“Overture” was not a very promising start, but things got easier once they dialed back the synth strings.
"(Well)Dusted", "X-Tra Wide", and "Shiver" were my standouts
Beck
4/5
A good friend in highschool was a Beck fan, so I know a lot of these songs from our late night cruises in the suburbs. Unfortunately, Beck was a little too avant-garde for me at that time(I was more of a metalhead) and I never made an effort to dig in beyond what I heard in that Volvo. Twenty something years later, I regret that. If Beck wasn’t ahead of his time in a popular sense, he certainly was for me personally.
Slint
5/5
I knew nothing about Slint before today, however, there are countless bands still making music that sounds like this and I've seen many of them over the years in small bars and DIY spaces.
I wish I had found this when I was younger. I think the hardest part of trying to make music as a teenager was figuring out where the music in my head fit into the broader music landscape, and that challenge drove me to force different styles on myself so I could fit in better. I'm not sure I even knew post-rock was a thing at the time, which is pretty unfortunate. This feels much closer to the music I would have made naturally than the metal-based music I ended up trying to make. My blues roots gave me a love for jamming and letting the groove slowly build, but my only point of reference for that type of music was classic rock and actual jam bands (Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Phish, etc) and that wasn't a sound I was interested in creating. Realizing there was a whole genre where people did that with heavier distortion would have been a revelation for me, and would have helped me share that vision with potential band mates. Sadly, the 2005 reunion was just barely too late for me to notice; one or two years earlier might have changed my life. Or not, who knows.
"Breadcrumb Trail"
"Washer" (even if the vocals aren't quite in key)
"Good Morning, Captain"
Black Sabbath
4/5
It only makes sense that Black Sabbath would be pushed the day after Ozzy's death is announced. I appreciate the timeliness, but I will resist to use this review to eulogize Ozzy.
I'm not sure this is the definitive Black Sabbath album, but I do understand why it's on the list. It's clear that Sabbath was writing the rules for metal with every recording, and Vol. 4 is the first time they took the reins and produced an album themselves (cocaine definitely helped). I'm sure this has been studied closely by innumerable aspiring rock'n'rollers and they've all taken away different pieces.
"Wheels of Confusion/The Straightener": A fun classic rock riff to start the album, but it quickly transitions to very recognizable Sabbath. The guitar solo in the last few minutes is unexpected and feels like early roots for the 'widdly-widdly-wah' guitar solos that were everywhere in the late 70s and 80s.
"Changes": A classic. Kinda crazy that they would put this so far forward in the album; they certainly didn't play it this early at concerts.
"Supernaut": The guitar tone feels like the missing link between the squawky overdrive of classic Classic Rock(TM) and the clean distortion of later Heavy Metal(TM). I'm sure there aren't major tone changes compared to the rest of the album, but it's front & center here and hard to miss. Impressively modern compared to the compressed/buzzy tone on Paranoid or Master of Reality, but that could just be better studio production or later remastering.
"Snowblind": Another classic that's launched 1000 garage bands.
"Laguna Sunrise": A string section and an acoustic guitar? I like this more than "FX" but it's hard to hear it as anything but filler. It makes sense why "Changes" was so far forward now; you wouldn't want that and this to be too close together. This definitely gave Ozzy a minute to go backstage and "freshen up" on the tour.
Garbage
4/5
I initially groaned at this because I forget Garbage and Hole are different bands. Had I managed to mentally uncouple these bands sooner, I might have been a Garbage fan in highschool.
My first impression is that Garbage leaned way more Industrial than I thought. The very machine-eque drumming and/or drum machine(?), really surprised me as I was expecting straight Grunge. The hits ("Only Happy When It Rains" & "Stupid Girl") do skew a little more 'mainstream' alt-rock, so maybe that's what lead me astray. Overall, this was an interesting listen for me and I’m sorry I missed it the first time around.
"Queer": feels very proto-Fiona Apple.
"Only Happy When It Rains": after "Queer", this really ramps the album back up to the heavier side. Hearing this in context makes it feel less Pop.
"As Heaven Is Wide": this is when I noticed the industrial influence. It also reminded me of future metal/industrial acts, like Orgy and Powerman 5000. Not sure I can fully defend that, but something got my mind there.
"Not My Idea": this is proto-CSS. I know that's an obscure band reference, but I'm going to call it out as proof of influence.
"Stupid Girl": If you can listen past the bubblegum, the breakdowns remind me of something straight off of a KMFDM album.
Metallica
3/5
I'm not a Metallica fan, but I can appreciate their contribution to the Metal(TM) genre. I knew I'd eventually have to listen to some Metallica albums for this project, so here we go...
A lot of this album feels like it's sticking to bread & butter metal - a wall of crunchy guitars and drums with some lyrics shouted over the top. That's fine, I don't have a ton to say about that. Where the album gets interesting is the moments like "...And Justice For All", "One", "To Live Is To Die", and "Dyers Eve" where they weave some classical guitar interludes into the standard metal structures. I don't know Metallica intimately enough to know if this was new for this album or not, but this being their first album nominated for a Grammy suggests it probably was. I do appreciate the irony of them losing to Jethro Tull; after listening to this, I feel like the two aren't as far apart as I would have thought.
A lot of the guitar solos sound like recycled Van Halen solos, but maybe that's all part of the design. This feels like a bid to bring Metal closer to the mainstream, and I think that's exactly what it did. A quick look at Metallica's history of award nominations doesn't show anything before this album and a lot from here forward. This was Metallica's big crossover moment, and that's not nothing.
Overall, I don't think I need to spend more time with this album, but I'm not as annoyed as I thought I would be to listen through it.
James Taylor
3/5
Except for the inclusion of a few fun blues moments and, of course, the one song everyone knows… I might have zoned this completely out. I’m sure this really spoke to people in 1970, but I couldn’t connect to it this morning.
“Steamroller”: love the blues but glad there’s a guitar on his lap hiding the boner.
“Fire and Rain”: the hit. This was definitely a go to for creepy autistic guitar guys at parties in the 70’s.
“… Oh Baby, Don’t You Loose Your Lip on Me”: another blues banger just to prove he can be Miracle Whip when he wasn’t so determined to be regular ass Mayonnaise.
“Suite for 20 G”: there was money for other musicians this whole time? We really did all that boring bedtime music just to finish the albums with drums and horns??? Borderline unforgivable.
The Byrds
3/5
I have an appreciation for the simplicity of this era of rock & roll. I listened to a good amount of Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills, Neil Young) when I was younger, so it's kinda fun to hear from David Crosby. Maybe I'll check out The Hollies soon to have background on Graham Nash before a CSNY album shows up on this list.
Not totally sure how to feel about this album, it's a pretty light and fun listen but I didn't get a ton of impact. The biggest stand out for me was "Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go)", but only because it was truly painful to sit through compared to the Hendrix version. Otherwise, I'll take the critics' word for how influential this album was on the beginnings of psychedelic rock and the rest of the 60s.
Funkadelic
3/5
This was a lot less "in your face" than I expected. Maybe that's my misunderstanding of Funk, but I was anticipating something much more frenetic.
Spotify doesn't have this one, so I had to fight ads to listen on YT... Probably not the best way to get 'under a groove', but I tried. Overall it's not a difficult listen, but not really my thing. My favorite song might be "Maggot Brain", but that's a bonus track that was added later. Otherwise, "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis" stood out, and so did "Who Says A Funk Bank Can't Play Rock?!" but the latter only because it's a pure funk song and doesn't seem to support any argument that they can play rock. Ironically, "Maggot Brain" is straight rock & roll and does more to support the thesis. So that’s fun.
The Boo Radleys
3/5
This album is kind of all over the place. I was initially encouraged by the number of reviews I saw where people expected not to like this and were won over; I'm not sure that was my experience. This album certainly has its moments, but it's a looong one with a lot of moments. It felt like it went from track 1 to track 5 in the blink of an eye, and then when I thought I must be close to the end of the album, I was only on track 12 (of 17).
The Boo Radleys are pretty clearly nostalgic for the late 60s - both the brit-pop of Beatlemania and the more psychedelic stuff (like yesterday's Byrds album). But in the next moment they us a much more 90s version of distorted guitar to kick off the next song or what I've dubbed "The Jurassic Park Orchestra" of dinosaur noises to end one.
Based on the 90s brit-pop albums I've heard so far in this project, none of this is all that unusual. There must have been something in the water over there. I appreciate why people find this appealing, but I struggle to feel nostalgia for a 90s band who's whole shtick is nostalgia for bands of the 60s. To me, this feels like it's taking a lot more inspiration than it's giving out.
Norah Jones
3/5
I've never listened to this whole album, but I assumed I knew what to expect with this one... and I was right. This album was insanely successful, and I love that for her. It's very pretty music and Norah has a wonderful voice, it's just not my thing. The only songs that caught my attention were the singles, and only because I recognized them. It probably can't be beaten as ambiance for a romantic dinner; I just don't love to reward albums for being good background music.
James Brown
3/5
James Brown might be best heard through Live recordings, if for no other reason then the crowd will let you know when you're missing a dance break. I have listened to Get Down With James Brown: Live At The Apollo Vol. IV (1972). James Brown does very little singing on that album, but presumably dances and otherwise entertains most of the time. I assumed this album would be similar, but that was incorrect. James Brown does a lot more singing on this album, and it certainly feels like a proper JB album.
This won't be a comparison of the two albums because they're very different and it wouldn't be fair. Listen to both.
If you're curious about the origins of Soul/Funk, this is a great place to start. I have no doubt that JB was an amazing entertainer in his day, and the Apollo was probably the best place to witness that. You really get the links to Rock'n'Roll and R&B, and some solid crooning (do we call it crooning in Soul?). Worth the listen.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
I've never listened to this album, but I've heard plenty of discourse about how important this album is and knew what to expect. It's difficult to be anything but positive here, even if this album (and really the whole singer/songwriter genre) isn't for me. I totally understand why people think this is a masterpiece, Joni has a beautiful voice and it's only bolstered by the minimal instrumentation and raw lyrics.
Controversial tangent time!
Who knows if any of this holds up, but here's what struck me while listening to this album. I saw several reviews about how these songs don't adhere to traditional rhyme schemes or song structures, and that makes it harder to get into this album... I have the same complaint about recent Taylor Swift albums and struggle to understand why they're so popular. In both cases, the music seems more about the emotional journey than about popular appeal. It's art as personal therapy, whether it appeals to you or not; the people who are supposed to get it, will get it. Obviously there are plenty of difference between how the two artists approach their music, but hearing this record is very informative. Without Joni, I wonder if 2020s Taylor feels the freedom to shed the pop song structure like she did. Even if you ignore every other artist Joni's impacted in the last 50 years, that feels like plenty proof of influence.
Look, this album is fine. I’ve not yet read a single review that can justify why it needs to be on this list though, and listening to the album doesn’t offer a convincing argument either. What are they doing that’s new and innovative? What musician is singling this out as their major influence? Help me.
Also- when they played live, what was Rod Stewart doing on the tracks where he doesn’t sing, just taking a smoke break? I truly don’t understand the multiple lead singer thing when one or more don’t play instruments.
Last thought - after a few beers, you could easily convince me “Stay With Me” was on The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack.
Janet Jackson
3/5
This is the most difficult review I've had to write so far. Parts of this album were really fun, and other parts were a real drag. I wasn't old enough to appreciate it, but it was nice that the big socially conscious things to talk about at this time were staying in school and using condoms. Compared to today, that feels so light and care-free.
I get why this album is on the list, but it doesn't really do anything for me. I think the highlights were all captured in the singles, and that means I'll get to revisit all the relevant pieces through the radio or on random playlists.
The Police
3/5
It's hard to argue with the influence of this one, given how many white reggae acts that still bubble up on pop radio. The Reggae/New Wave blend heard here isn't so popular anymore, but I feel like we can blame The Police (at least partially) for Ska and that's proven more enduring over the last few decades.
"Message In A Bottle" is a great opener since that's the only track most people are going to listen to when they play this album.
"Deathwish", "Contact", and "No Time This Time" feel like blueprints for Ska (without horns).
"Walking On The Moon" and "On Any Other Day" are mostly pretty terrible. How on earth did anyone allow WOTM to be 5min long? The chorus is catchy, but you have to go through sooo much to get there and I just don't want to. OAOD feels like a garage band demo that wouldn't get them signed anywhere. Is that Stewart doing vocals? He should not do that.
4/5
No matter how hard I try to listen to this album like it's the first time, it's difficult to be objective on this one, . I owned this album when I was 10, and it was one of the first albums I remember actually playing all the way through instead of just skipping around to the singles. I think there were like five singles from this album, so I guess I would have listened to 1/2 of it either way.
This album list has given me The Boo Radleys, Supergrass, and Primal Scream already - all helpful bits of brit-pop context that I didn't have when I was 10, not that I would have cared back then anyway. Comparatively, this album feels much more focused than any of those. Not dripping with psychedelic-era nostalgia like The Boo Radleys, more mature than Supergrass, and no electronic experimentation like Primal Scream. This album feels like it was aimed squarely at the 'pop' end of “brit-pop”, and it hit so hard that the whole genre died in its wake.
I'm impressed by the same thing I was impressed by as a kid - most of the album tracks feel like they could be singles if they were on weaker albums. As I mentioned, I wasn't a kid who spent much time sitting through albums and this one managed to keep my attention back then.
The little "Wonderwall" teaser at the beginning of "Hello" was a great way to start the album, and really foreshadowed how much that song would loom over the rest of their careers (ironic that there's a song called "Cast No Shadow" here too).
If I have to pick a low point, I’m going with “She’s Electric”, which I’ve never cared for. Something about the vocal performance triggers the same response as Ringo singing on a Beatles song.
A fun revisit, and certainly important to my musical development, but not one I'm going to add back to my normal rotation.
Hole
3/5
My review of Garbage (by Garbage) mentioned how much I've always had Garbage & Hole linked in my head, so I feel it's appropriate to also bring it up here. While I was impressed by how much Garbage seemed to be a alt/industrial band that borrowed some pop sensibilities for its singles, this album feels like it's doing the opposite - leaning hard into pop and only periodically retreating back to their grunge roots (a lot like the Oasis album I reviewed yesterday). If you managed to look past the lingering Courtney/Kurt "did she, didn't she" speculation and consider yourself a Hole fan before this album, I imagine the power pop turn felt pretty jarring. Others of us were less conflicted about our feelings and resisted this album without needing to consider whether they were selling out.
I generally don't love the idea of a "California album", because it feels the same as having a friend who just got a new car and has to constantly mention how great their new car is. We get it, it's neat, but like… what's the point? Are you taking money from the CA tourist board to get me to go there? Or is the idea to make an album that reminds you of California that you can listen to while you're in California? Sounds like the audio version of wearing the band t-shirt to the concert.
As an pop (alt pop? indie pop? idk) album, this is an extremely tight and well produced album built to be a smash hit. I read that they brought in a bunch of mercenaries to produce this, and it shows. In retrospect, it was good to have an anti-hero female pop star right before the Britney/Christina era, not that I would have given Courtney that kind of credit twenty years ago. This was big enough that I trust it found its audience and resonated with the alt girls who needed to hear it (I'll stop short of saying "needed a role-model"). So, personal feelings aside, I can respect this album's place on the list and in pop music history.
OutKast
3/5
A double album that’s actually two solo albums? That’s a weird way to announce you’re breaking up, but ok.
Having both members produce an album in their own style helps me appreciate their contributions to the collaborative OutKast sound but, after listening, it's not surprising that they could get frustrated by the constant collaboration and both want to branch. While it's a weird concept, I do appreciate the peek behind the curtain... and that they managed to get a hit single from each album. I could do with less skits & interludes, at 2+ hours it’s hard to get excited about playing through the whole album again. Maybe a playlist of the highlights, though!
“Hey Ya!” will always have a little piece of my heart and a spot on my lifetime playlist.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
I can appreciate why some people adore Dusty Springfield and why some people are frustrated that this feels like appropriation. A white english lady singing soul music will do that, I guess. "Son Of A Preacher Man" is a classic, otherwise I'd be content to let this one collect dust.
"The Windmills Of Your Mind" gets an honorable mention for sounding like a James Bond song.
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
I totally understand why this would try people’s patience, but I didn’t hate it. The first three tracks feel like they’re designed to chase off the tourists so only the punks (and otherwise like-minded) can enjoy the rest of the album. All the 1 star ratings suggest it totally worked!
The lion’s share of this album doesn’t feel very avantgarde or controversial. If the first tracks were intended to turn off mainstream audiences, the creeping new wave influence on later tracks seems like it would be just as off-putting for the punk audience. Then we end with “Fodderstompf” which probably alienates anyone who’s left over. I am surprised that this track isn’t sampled or remade more often, it is cloyingly repetitive but has good bones.
David Bowie
5/5
Bowie apparently never committed to saying he was doing soul music here, so at least we all agree on that. Who knows whether he was saying it because he didn't nail the sound he was looking for, or because it was intentionally just a little bit off. In either case, calling it "plastic soul" or "a facsimile of soul" is more accurate than calling it soul music. But my major takeaway has less to do with the soul influence he was trying to channel and more to do with the new wave sound he was accidentally creating. If I didn't know when this album was issued in 1975, I would have guessed it came out five or ten years later.
I'm impressed by how ahead of it's time this felt and ended up listening to it three times. I gave Hunky Dory 4/5 stars, and my feelings about this record are much less ambiguous. I wouldn't have liked this one as much when I was in high school, but it made a bigger impression this year. I guess I'm a Bowie fan.
The Who
3/5
I like The Who but found this album underwhelming. These shows (two, on back-to-back nights) were set up specifically to record a live album and it totally feels like it. It's much more like they're playing live-in-studio than actually playing for an audience; almost like the crowd was instructed to sit quietly and only clap between songs. Technically, this album is a masterclass for how to mic a live band for recording - and they do sound great - but the record feels so soulless. For something that's been called 'the best live album ever recorded', I expected more.
It's not "Frampton Comes Alive!" or Thin Lizzy's "Live & Dangerous", but if you're a fan of The Who and well-mannered British concert goers, this one is for you!
Talking Heads
4/5
After David Bowie's Young Americans on Sunday (today is Tuesday), I'm swimming in the wellspring of New Wave this week and I'm here for it!
I think I've underestimated the influence of the Talking Heads and never given them the credit they're due. All the singles (minus "Psycho Killer") predictably skew a little on the pop side, which probably kept me at a distance. The album tracks fall back into some of the punk/funk roots. Like "Psycho Killer", I love how prominent the baselines are in many of these songs (and even more-so in the 2005 remastered version) which gives tracks like "Memories Can't Wait" an ominous sense of suspense while also helping all the awkward nerds in their fanbase stay on beat during the verses.
Absolutely not for everyone - it wasn't even for me until recently - but I've been having a lot of fun exploring experimental pop music, especially this throughline from David Bowie - David Lynch - Beck.
Youssou N'Dour
5/5
This album feels like it covers a lot of ground in only 4 tracks. Each one is long without feeling like it's bloated or dragging on, and I really appreciate that. I tend to enjoy a lot of African & Caribbean music, and it's easy to hear the connective tissue between this and, say, the Buena Vista Social Club (Cuba). I will be using this album as an entry point to find some more African music that isn't currently on my radar.
Fugazi
3/5
Fugazi is one of the bands that always gets cited as a major influence on Nirvana, but I'll confess that I haven't dabbled as much as I probably should have (excuse me while I, once again, imagine what my life would look like if music streaming existed when I was in highschool). After listening to Pixies, another band often cited on that list, I was a little nervous about this album. Fortunately, this went better. Your mileage may vary based on your feelings about punk rock, but for me: if Pixies were "fine", I give Fugazi a "pretty good". 3.49/5
The Isley Brothers
3/5
I’m struggling with whether to call this Disco or Diet Funk. This one feels like it was engineered to be a pop success, and the sound has been sampled (and copied) countless times. It’s the kinda feel good album you want to play on a sunny day.
Ray Price
3/5
I was pretty excited by the first 15 seconds of this album because I’ve been listening to a lot of lap steel guitar country music lately (surf country, psychedelic country, etc). Sadly, as soon as Ray Price opened his mouth, the spell was broken. And to hear it was for a long winded album introduction… woof. Admittedly, that tainted my first listen of this album, but I enjoyed it more the second time around.
If I’m going to listen to 50/60s crooning, I think I prefer this to the lounge lizard alternatives. As a kid, I think this is what I thought Elvis sounded like; at least late stage white jumpsuit Elvis. Anyway, at only 37min, the album wraps up just as my attention span starts to wane and that’s great.
Lastly, Idk if we’d have Orville Peck without Ray Price, and thats reason enough to give this a thumbs up.
The Prodigy
3/5
I was ignorant to how much The Prodigy probably influenced the music I listened to in highschool. My only exposure was the song “Firestarter” (not on this album), and more specifically, clips of the music video which had very goth/industrial overtones that led me to believe this music was a very different thing.
Pushing past that visual prejudice, this album sounds like you’d expect from any early ‘techno’ record, with a lot of happy motifs in place of the darker and more agro music I expected.
“Voodoo People” - was this a single? I’ve definitely heard this one before.
“3 Kilos” - nothing could have prepared me for the flute takeover on back half of this track. I'm here for it, but it wasn't on my bingo card for this album.
4/5
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of soul/funk records from this list, and I wish this one came a little earlier. This feels like a good bridge between early 70s 'hard rock' and funk music, and I could have appreciated Funkadelic and even David Bowie's Young Americans a little more with this context.
It’s not wholly surprising that this album sold well, but I’m impressed to find out it was the top selling album of 1973. With a few tweaks to the formula we’ll get “Low Rider” in 1975 and everyone knows that song. It feels mean to call this “training wheels Funk”, but that doesn’t make it not true. War is fun, I liked this.
Venom
3/5
You have to be influential if people use your album name for a whole genre, right? This album sounds a little dated now - partially because it sounds like it was recorded in a highschool locker room, and partially because metal has evolved so much since 1982. Even looking past that, I think they blew it with the sound levels on this album. If you saw these guys live, I’m sure the vocals were usually buried under a lot of guitars/drums and you’d have no idea what they were shouting about. I’ve been to SO MANY shows like that, and honestly, that’s probably the right way to mix this kind of music. Nobody needs to hear the lyrics, just play loud noise and let me lose myself in it for a while.
Hookworms
1/5
This is the kind of music I feel like you'd hear in a store like Urban Outfitters if the manager is feeling particularly energetic and planning to make the staff rearrange a bunch of things. That's to say: this feels like the outer edge of bland mainstream 2010s psychedelic/hipster/indie/brit rock on the corporate retail safe-list. They sound like a band you should have heard of but somehow don't know anything about.
My tasting notes include hints of Passion Pit, undertones of Arctic Monkeys, and the cinematic flourishes of Muse - all bands that came before Hookworms, not bands that would have taken influence from them. And I guess that's where I'm struggling with this one. While this album is totally fine, I don't understand why it's on this list or what lasting impact it's had on the music industry. Like many reviewers, I've never heard of this band/album before and that's weird because it's one of the most contemporary albums on the list.
Most of this review was developed during "Ullswater" which somehow felt like the longest 7 minutes in recorded history, only to be outdone by the 8:35 runtime of "Opener" (which is track 5, despite its name). If this list is supposed to stay at 1001 albums, I hope this record is replaced by a more meaningful work soon.
Faith No More
3/5
Faith No More is Red Hot Chili Peppers if RHCP hired a heavy metal guitarist and only liked California as a friend.
FNM laid the groundwork for the 'nu-metal' acts of the (very) late 90's and early 00's, which comprised a large portion of my CD case during that time. At that time I only knew "Epic" and didn't fully appreciate how metal the rest of the FNM catalog was. The whole playbook, including the vocal shift from grunting verses to whiney choruses, is present here. But to their credit, this doesn't feel like a band that got together and agreed to just chunk out a bunch of same-y rap metal songs and call it a day. Songs like "Woodpecker From Mars" make a convincing argument that they know how to play their instruments and have some interest in exploring their musical space. To the extent that an album track can be broadly influential, I would argue that this track is one of the earliest examples of post-rock and may have contributed to creating that genre. With several tracks in the 5-8min range, they weren't recording this to be potential radio fodder, and probably could have had more hits if they edited themselves a little more.
I won't call this an easy listen, but it was intriguing and worth my time.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
After Oasis, brit-rock took a sabbatical from mainstream radio, but that ended when Franz Ferdinand showed up in 2004.
From a Pop perspective this album was a smash hit and it’s absolutely unsurprising that it’s on this list.
In the same vein as bands like The Killers, Bloc Party, and The Strokes, this is indie rock built more for a good time than a long time. I hadn’t heard the term “landfill indie” before reading reviews for this, but it makes sense. These bands were the soundtrack of an era where everyone bought hipster clothes at H&M and Urban Outfitters. But where are all those outfits now?
The The
5/5
Reviews of this album are extremely polarized so I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. Fortunately, this is right up my alley and a quick addition to the “this is the stuff I hoped to discover from this project” list. Infected is an interesting peek at the sloppier, sleazier, side of new wave. The extra dose of funk and the horns can lean things a little circus-y at times, but I’m here for it.
It’s kinda like if Tom Waits told his band to play happy music and he rested his voice, or Talking Heads if David Byrne brought a little more creepy lounge singer energy. Or like if Electric Six formed 20yrs sooner and invented their sound from scratch.
Begrudgingly, I can’t deny that I’m a New Wave fan at this point, especially the weirder stuff. I might need this on vinyl.
Motörhead
3/5
“Ace Of Spades” is one of the best rock songs ever made and I’ll love Motörhead forever for making it.
But Motörhead is like the poor man’s AC/DC, and I can only handle so much before I hit my limit. At least when I’m sober. I listened to just the 11 tracks from the original album, and there are like five songs that start exactly like “Ace Of Spades”. That might have been a fun tease if AOS was at the end of the album, but not when it's the very first track.
Live albums usually aren’t great, and this one is no exception. I wonder if this album list attempts to use live albums in place of greatest hits albums so it can include influential bands who don’t have a standout album. In this case, the live album doesn’t standout either.
Alice In Chains
3/5
A great bridge between grunge and heavy metal for anyone who needs it. Growing up, alternative radio sort of jumped around between all of the various alternative/rock genres and I never fully appreciated where Alice In Chains fit into the big picture. I’m realizing that I’ve probably drastically underrated their influence on much of the music I listened to growing up - more than Nirvana, Alice In Chains feels like the wellspring of my early 00s CD case.
At least four of these tracks were always in rotation on alternative rock radio in the 90s/00s ("Them Bones", "Down In A Hole", "Rooster", and "Would?"), so you're never very far from a familiar song on this album. After listening, I'm sure Alice In Chains was a gateway to heavy metal for a lot of kids in the early 90s and I'm glad I listened a little closer. All that said, will I revisit this very often? I kinda doubt it.
The Fall
4/5
I can't decide where exactly I land on this one. It's correctly labeled as 'post-punk' because it's doing more than punk rock, but definitely not as much as new wave... like they're trying to convey some new wave ideas but only using the language of punk rock. The Fall does eventually learn to speak new wave (even with horns!), but they aren't there yet in this debut album. In a lot of ways, The Fall is an excellent case study in the evolution of punk/post-punk/new wave.
If you're into 'classic' punk, this should be a tolerable listen for you. If not, this is probably a little too hardcore (or weird) to get all the way through. Some of their later records are a little more broadly palatable, but I enjoyed chewing on this one for a little bit.
The 13th Floor Elevators
3/5
If you asked a good A.I. Engine to generate a psychedelic rock album, it would probably spit out an approximation of this record. Is it chock-full-o-bangers? No, but it absolutely nails the psychedelic sound on every track; you could easily throw this album on instead of a psychedelic rock playlist and not feel like you're missing much. Sure there are bands that did it better, but The 13th Floor Elevators did it first so they get more credit.
If you don't know what an electric jug sounds like, not only will you absolutely know its sound after this album but you'll certainly have feelings one way or the other about its use as an instrument. Had Janis Joplin committed to joining the band, they would have had two of the most polarizing sounds in 1960s rock&roll (and maybe some more success). Oh what could have been...
PS- If anyone reading this is considering an Elevators/psychedelic rock cover band, "The Electric Jugs" would be a great name (currently available per spotify's artist listings).
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3/5
This is an impeccable album and the 36min runtime is exactly the right length. I didn’t enjoy this as much as I did Youssou N’Dour, but that’s just my personal taste.
Ramones
5/5
I need a weighty word that isn't "quintessential", because music reviews use that word too much. This is American Punk Rock. It's the (very good) picture next to the definition in the dictionary, it's the formula you'd read in the textbook, it's what you're handed if you walk into a record store and say "one punk rock, please", or the first record you play for someone who grew up in an separatist cult and has never heard punk rock before. Except “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” because that song is corny and below them and I hope Tommy caught more grief for writing it than he ever did for being so short.
I’m giving this my first 5star rating.
Sonic Youth
4/5
So much of the music I listen to sounds like it came from here. Or like it’s still just copying this.
I’ve never listened very closely to Sonic Youth and I hate myself for that right now. I grew up with the grunge movement constantly being called as the biggest and most influential thing to happen to rock&roll in my lifetime, and of all the bands that influenced grunge, SY feels like it’s where my favorite ingredients came from.
The Who
3/5
I’d hoped to like this more than I did. It was pretty disjointed and I could never really get into a groove with it.
There aren’t any bad songs here, but about 1/2 of the album is pretty unimpressive - I’m thinking of songs like “La-La-La Lies”, “Much Too Much”, “The Kids Are Alright”, and “It’s Not True”. But then there are some truly big swings like “My Generation” and “Please, Please, Please”, or even “I’m A Man” or “The Ox” which pull me back in.
There’s an argument that “My Generation” is one of the earliest proto-punk rock recordings and it’s inarguably the most interesting thing they do on this album. The rest is pretty standard “English band that listened to too much American blues and R&B”.
Dire Straits
3/5
Listen, none of these songs are bad, but stacked on top of eachother they create a very boring album. As soon as I put this on, I thought “oh, I’m going to hear Sultans Of Swing today, aren’t I?” And I did, six tracks later. I guess that’s my point here; this album feels like nine iterations of the same idea in a hunt to find the best version. It’s a great idea, but 41 minutes has never felt so long and today was the closest I’ve ever come to falling asleep while mowing the lawn. Mark Knopfler’s guitar work borders on sounding like a lap steel from time to time and that only makes me wish for an actual lap steel guitar in the mix. That might have really launched this record into the cosmos for me. As is, im not sure I’m picking up what new and influential sound we’re getting here.
And for what it’s worth, I’m not convinced “Sultans Of Swing” actually beats out “Wild West End” as the best version of the idea, but I think that ship has sailed.
Anthrax
3/5
When I was growing up, Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian frequently showed up on TV as a music pundit (maybe he's still doing that, idk I don't watch much TV these days). My knowledge of Anthrax is pretty limited beyond whatever incidental exposure I got from the clips used to prove his bonafides on those shows. It was always a little strange to me that Anthrax was (is?) held in such high regard but I absolutely never hear anybody talking about their music. With other "Big Four" acts like Metallica or Slayer, you will randomly see people wearing the band t-shirts or hear the music blasting from a car in traffic, but I don't feel like Anthrax has had that same staying power. Maybe it was all the line-up changes and new lead singers.
Musically, thrash just feels like metal with a little extra punk sprinkled in and I can handle that just fine for the length of an album. But vocally, this album is very much 'of its era', with the soaring chorus vocals that were popular in metal at the time (think mid-80s Metallica, Judas Priest, etc). The grunty verses and borderline-falsetto choruses are my least favorite thing about this era in thrash/metal and my biggest hurdle here.
Bill Callahan
3/5
This album is full of immaculate and captivating instrumental arrangements. The vocal performance takes some getting used to though - the first verse of the first song was pretty tough, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through the whole album. Once I adapted to Bill’s spoken word singing style, I found this to be a rewarding listen.
Maybe the subject matter is too bleak for any of these songs to cross into the mainstream, but I’d be curious to hear these instrumentals in the hands of other vocalists. Like, “Faith/Void” sung by Orville Peck?! Hey, it’s the right time to start thinking about a 20th Anniversary project!
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
4/5
Hard to believe that new wave had advanced all the way to ethereal synth pop by 1981. My tastes lean much more towards post-punk and "here's a weird mix of punk and funk" new wave, but I knew I'd eventually have albums from this end of the new wave spectrum as well. If we're saying that this was the first synth pop new wave album, then I have to grapple with the huge debt of gratitude owed to OMD for their influence on pop culture of the 80s, 90s, and beyond.
It's easy to get lost in the ethereal sauce of this record, and there are no big bold standout hits to reel you back in. Even "Souvenir" and "Joan Of Arc (Maid of New Orleans)" aren't punchy enough to break the vibe-y spell of the record. It's a very cohesive album that manages to feel familiar even on the first listen, and I could see it providing some great synth pop ambiance for a quiet night at home.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
I was really looking forward to a big seminal funk record, but that's not quite what this ended up being. I could argue that this is another 'tale of two albums', but it's not quite 50/50. This primarily an album of commercial soul ballads with a few fleeting excursions into funk music - including a complete shift in the final minute of the last song to end the album with one last funk break. Unfortunately that just served as one last reminder of what this album might have been. It's a lovely album if you come into this looking for an album of kinda sappy love songs, but I hoped for the album version of "Superstition" and left disappointed. Sure, it still belongs on this list but it's not exactly the visionary work I wanted it to be.
3/5
I wish Bono wasn’t so insufferably smug because I’d be able to enjoy this more. This is an objectively great album and Side 1 alone is enough to put this record in the highest tier of all-time rock & roll recordings. It hurts me to say that, but it’s true.
Tangerine Dream
3/5
This probably blew a ton of minds in 1974, and I had to keep that context in mind the whole time I listened to it. In 2025, it just sounds like someone playing an organ while their phone alarm goes off for 37 minutes. I'd compliment this for being good background music, but the phone alarm sound does trigger a little bit of anxiety.
This album is only two tracks and, if you listen to it on Spotify, you won't realize when they are over because it starts playing music that is indistinguishable from the two tracks on this album. I guess that speaks to the influence Tangerine Dream had on the genre. This is the oldest electronic music I've heard so far, and I'm impressed to hear what was possible in 1974.
The Strokes
4/5
I blame this album for the early 00s indie bonanza. Is that fair? Probably not entirely, but I get to write whatever I want here and you get to choose whether you're going to read it.
I remember being captivated by the "Last Nite" music video every time it came on. I guess there was something in the lo-fi 'slacker rock' aesthetic and the gritty vocal mix that scratched my brain the right way. It didn't hurt that the song jumps straight into the chorus before the first verse either, that's not something I feel like I hear often but it's a great hook. The best way I can explain the appeal is to compare it to other songs that grab me the same way: go listen to "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain, "Ace Of Spades" by Motorhead, and "Fell In Love With A Girl" by The White Stripes. Compared to that list, "Last Nite" feels a little bloated (especially in the intro) but if it were stripped down to ~2min, it would hold it's own with the others.
The rest of the album doesn't punch quite so hard, but still delivers on the promise of that first single with some solid old school rock & roll. I'm sure there was other indie rock happening at this time, but this is the band that brought it mainstream enough for me to notice. Alt Rock radio was still focused on Nu Metal in 2001 but this broke through anyway.
Frank Ocean
3/5
Reviews of this one are super polarized, you either love Frank Ocean or you hate him. Maybe that's a generational thing, where this resonates for Gen Z and some Millennials but completely loses anyone older than that? I don't know. But in this binary that I've invented, my elder millennial ass is fittingly somewhere in the middle. Low effort R&B is fine, and I think I prefer this to the Usher, R Kelly, Casey & JoJo, et al era when R&B was doing too much. I appreciate that there's a 10 year gap between those reference points and this album, but I wasn't plugged into R&B during that time and can't comment on what was happening then. I'm not going to download this, but I'd put it on while I make dinner at home.
One of the top hater reviews blames this album for the rise of internet slut culture, mumble rap, and low effort internet musicians. I think that's kinda silly, but if you want to believe that's true then it kinda proves the influence, doesn't it? Hard to complain that this is on the list and, in the next breathe, prove exactly why it's here.
The Cardigans
3/5
The name, The Cardigans, sounded vaguely familiar but I initially couldn't place it. Within the first 30sec of this album I said “Oh... I bet this is the album with that ‘love me love me, say that you love me’ song”. Well, that's called “Lovefool” and it’s track 7. I have a vivid memory of sleeping over a friend’s house when I was ten and hearing that song play on repeat from his sister’s room all night while I couldn’t sleep. It’s not a bad song, but I heard it enough in that one night to last me a lifetime. Looking past that, the rest of the album is a pretty fun/light listen that added some sunshine to my morning.
I know the band is Swedish, but the sound is like a 'California Rock' album with all the 60s nostalgia of 90s Brit Rock. They even include a cover of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and "Iron Man" references in "Heartbreaker" and "Choke", just to prove the point. This sound persisted (you can hear it from actual California bands like Beulah) but "Lovefool" feels like the high-water mark for this sound. Hole will drop the nostalgia for grunge and relaunch the California sound in '98 with Celebrity Skin. Then there's the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication in '99, and so on... anyways, I digress.
If I have a complaint, it's that Nina's voice starts to get a little cloying over the course of the album; I wish her range was just a little bit lower and not so saccharine sweet in every song. Interestingly, "Lovefool" has some stacked vocal harmonies that help balance this out really well, but they didn't bother with it anywhere else on the album.
Blur
2/5
More Brit Rock, WOO HOO!
You’ve heard “Song 2”, even if you've never known that was the name of the song. It's their biggest hit and probably the only thing you know about Blur.
Unfortunately, the rest of the album is pretty unremarkable 90s brit rock. I'm not going to wade into the details of Blur changing their sound for this record or what bands they chose to "take influence from" for their new sound. You've never heard their old sound anyway, so who cares. This list seems pretty insistent that brit rock is very important and that we should listen to every big record from the genre. Sadly, I don't see what this is bringing to the table that isn't covered by The Boo Radleys and Oasis before it, or Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand after it (all albums I've reviewed from this list so far). It doesn't feel like a step forward for anything, just a 'status quo' brit rock record that managed one monster hit single. I didn't need to hear this before I died.
Arcade Fire
5/5
I have a very small vinyl collection, and this is in it. Sorry, my elder millennial is showing. It’s impossible for me to be completely objective here, so I'll be brief instead.
This is an album I listen to when I wake up in a good mood on a sunny Saturday morning, and on bad days when I need to shout-sing something until I’m no longer on the brink of ugly crying.
Similar to how U2 made ethereal rock & roll, I describe this as 'transcendent' indie rock. It's a sound you'll hear a few years down the road when Mumford & Son throw a little more folk at it and become one of the biggest bands in the world.
The Young Rascals
4/5
*Here’s another one I’ll use an A.I. construct to explain.*
If you asked A.I. to make you a cliche pop-rock album from 1966, you’d end up with this. Rather than trying to explain the state of music in 1966 to someone, this album seems like it would be the easiest way to distill pop radio down into one album.
I don’t say that as a bad thing either. The 34min of this record flew by, and I added 2 tracks to my Spotify ‘liked songs’ playlist. Admittedly, I accidentally put too much whiskey in my coffee this Saturday morning, and there’s a possibility I’m being overly generous here. “Groovin’”, is the most played song from this album on Spotify, and it’s easy see why it would end up on 60s playlists. The other, “You Better Run”, is a fun proto-new wave track that certainly furthered the concept of blue-eyed soul.
It feels a little weird to listen to this objectively middle-of-the-road album and consider giving it 4 stars, but here I am.
2/5
I regret wanting to buy this album when it came out. I’m sure it would have spoken to me in 2000 and I’m glad it doesn’t anymore.
To the extent that”pop nu-metal” is a genre, this is a prime example. Musically, this is interesting enough, it pulls in a lot more hip-hop than I think was normal at the time. Unfortunately, it’s not doing anything lyrically exciting. Fred seems fixated on insisting he’s misunderstood and under appreciated while also reveling in his newfound fame and privilege.
It’s just not for me.
Yes
3/5
Alright, I appreciate how incredibly nerdy this album/band/genre is. If you like prog rock and renaissance fairs, this is probably right up your alley.
Album length is a big dose for this kind of music and I don't think I need more than a few tracks at a time, no matter how good the guitar work is, or how nasty the baselines are. Seriously, the opening bass riff on “Roundabout”? Disgusting.
About 1/2 the songs feel like they started with some sheet music for some kind of very obscure classical guitar music and then they just decided to jam around it for 6 minutes. If they just did that with far less singing, maybe I could handle more.
Richard Hawley
2/5
I'm compelled to give this album a chance to make its case because I listen to a fair amount of whatever we're calling this genre - southern gothic? haunting country ballads? sad western dirges?
After listening, I have no doubt that Richard is an accomplished musician. Musically, the arrangements are very good, but he doesn’t have the voice to push this over the finish line for me. I'd say he's about 90% there, but give me a few big notes and prove your chops!
Like my review of Bill Callahan’s Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, I’d love to hear covers of these songs from more competent (and compelling) vocalists. I can see myself adding a few tracks to my "ImPECKable Summer" playlist, but I don't know if I'll come back for the full album again. I'm also not totally convinced this makes the list if it was done by an artist who wasn't already 'British famous' when it was released.
Jurassic 5
3/5
Alt Hip Hop was a revelation for me when I first started streaming music on Pandora. Whenever I need a palate cleanser from whatever corner of the music world I'm stuck in, alt hip hop always does the trick.
I love the positivity and how fresh this feels compared to mainstream hip hop. On first listen, I did think this got a little longwinded, but not to the point that it was annoying. It changes styles enough that it's a little tough to guess when the album ends and spotify's album radio begins - in my case, I was sure we were doing radio but was still on the final album track. The second listen seemed to fly by, so I don't know what to think about that. Overall a good listen.
Frank Sinatra
1/5
I was pretty excited to finally receive some Bossa Nova, but very unenthusiastic that it was this album (which barely feels like a Bossa Nova album). A quick search shows that there are a few other Bossa Nova records on the 1001AYHBYD list (like "Getz/Gilberto"!), but I got this one first.
I would gladly throw this off the list for a better record by a Bossa Nova artist who isn't otherwise included, like "Wave" by Antonio Carlos Jobim (if we want to keep ACJ on the list), "Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66" by Sergio Mendes, or almost any early selection by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. These other records could offer a far better primer on Bossa Nova than you get here. Frank has two other albums on this list and including this cash-grab snoozefest is over-generous.
In fact, I'll argue that this record is a direct rebuttal to the success of Herb Alpert & TJB in 1966, and its existence is a prime example of why Herb Alpert should be on this list! For the week of May 21, 1966, Herb Alpert & TJB had 5 albums in the Billboard Top 20: Whipped Cream & Other Delights(1), What Now My Love(2), Going Places(4), South Of The Border(17), and The Lonely Bull(20). And Billboard's list of top-selling albums at the end of 1966 included 3 in the top 5: Whipped Cream & Other Delights(1), Going Places(3), and What Now My Love(5) - eclipsing Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Barbara Streisand, and The Mamas and the Papas. Even if you don't like Herb Alpert, or Bossa Nova, it's impossible to argue that his sound wasn't king-for-a-day in 1966. And in that light, it's ridiculous that this album is included but not a single TJB albums is on this list. #JusticeForHerb
The White Stripes
2/5
I've listened to this album before, probably only once or twice though. It's a great album if you're into early 00s indie. "Seven Nation Army" will probably get played on rock radio forever and it certainly helped cement the legacy of The White Stripes and their influence on this era of rock & roll.
But... it's starting to get a little same-y, right? Like how do you listen to "There's No Home For You Here" without singing "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" (from White Blood Cells)? That's so early in the album that it's discounts my opinion of the rest of the songs. I do appreciate that we hear Meg singing a little bit; I'm not sure if that's new for this album but it's a welcome change of pace.
More hits than White Blood Cells, but idk if it’s actually better so it’s getting the same score.
Missy Elliott
3/5
The fat laced nike dunks on the album cover bring me straight back to highschool. I haven't ever listened to this whole album, but it's a great time capsule for where hip hop was at the time.
I appreciate Missy's lyrics and her flow, and the underlying beats are equally compelling (thanks, Timbaland). There are a lot of fun cameos on this record, and an equal amount of interlude skits to ruin the flow of the album. Overall, a fun listen but not one I'll probably spend much time with again.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
I listened to this very early on a Sunday morning while getting ready for a 100 mile bike race - so admittedly, I could have missed some nuance. Overall, a lot of this felt pretty similar with the only notable variation being whether the song had orchestral support or it was just a straight heavy grunge arrangement. Especially on side one. Side two felt a little more dynamic, but not by much. Billy Corgan's voice isn't especially good and, in my experience, it doesn't grow on you over time. Someone will need to explain the underlying concept to me and justify why this needed to be a double album. On the surface, it doesn't make sense to me.
As much as I appreciated Siamese Dream when I reviewed that record, I’m leaning the other way on this one. I appreciate artists taking big swings but this didn’t quite make it out of the park.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Willie Nelson's 22nd studio album, an album of sleepy country covers of "pop standards" that won the 1979 Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance ("Georgia On My Mind") and spent TEN YEARS on the Billboard Country Album chart.
Willie has one other album on this list, Red Headed Stranger (1975), which is also full of sleepy country ballads; that's just Willie's thing. From that standpoint, Stardust isn't anything new for Willie except that he's covering pop songs, and maybe that's the secret sauce? His voice is not charming but not especially good, and the instrumentation is so sparse you might occasionally forget it's there. Nevertheless, it was a monster hit. It's a little bit like the opposite of Ray Charles's "Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music" (where Ray does 'pop' arrangements of country songs), but I can't justify giving it the same gravitas since it's not breaking as many barriers. It also feels like the Frank Sinatra butchers Bossa Nova album (Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim) I reviewed last week - just as sleepy, but far less awful.
"Georgia On My Mind" is a standout, otherwise it doesn't really do anything for me. Probably a great album for putting your kids to bed, but for everything else I think Red Headed Stranger is the better album.
Miles Davis
3/5
This album is going to be either exquisite or excruciating, depending on your relationship with experimental jazz - there's not a lot of in between with this genre. If you're struggling to get into this album, I might recommend starting with Disc 2 to get your bearings on the shorter songs first. They're a little less experimental which could make them more palatable and help acclimate you to what you'll get on Disc 1. You might still hate all of it, but at least this gives you a little more runway to work with.
I've spent more time with Davis's masterpiece, Kind Of Blue (1959), so this feels like a pretty radical evolution compared to that reference point. For starters, there are electric instruments here that absolutely weren't present in Kind Of Blue. It's also certainly more chaotic and requires a slightly different headspace to appreciate. I can get there, but it feels more like homework than casual listening; I don't think I'l revisit this as often as I play Kind Of Blue.
"Miles Runs The Voodoo Down" stood out as a good balance of experimenting while staying grounded in more traditional jazz. If you can only listen to one song, maybe this is the one.
"Sanctuary" sounds more like what you'd get on older MD albums, so it resonated with me from that aspect.
3/5
Music historians love to talk about three big events that melted people’s minds: Elvis Presley gyrating his hips on The Milton Berle Show in 1956, The Beatles playing The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, and Bob Dylan plugging in an electric guitar in 1965. Oh, and Woodstock in 1969, I guess, but there seems to be considerably less hand-wringing about that.
Like his shows from this time, this record is split into two sections: Disc 1: classic Bob sitting on a chair playing guitar and harmonica, and Disc 2: Electric Bobaloo. I think it’s important to note that electric instruments didn’t just change the musical delivery, they completely changed the sound. Disc 2 is very much a blues/folk rock record, and it’s understandable that people who like Chair Bob would resist Electric Bob. My hot take is that Electric Bob is the better Bob; all that extra noise really helps mask his objectively-not-great singing voice and adds some much needed flair. Again, plenty of people didn’t want that, and they showed up to the concerts to boo and cry about it.
I’ve never really been a Dylan fan (of any era), and I can’t listen to Bob without hearing Dana Carvey’s SNL impression. But I actually enjoyed Electric Bobaloo, and the back-end of Disc 1 (from “Desolation Row” on).
Eric Clapton
2/5
My previous review of Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs (1970) was less than generous, and this one won't be much different. I always thought I respected Eric Clapton as a musician, but I'm learning that maybe isn't true (even without considering the personal/political reasons he's fallen out of popular favor in recent years).
When we last left off, Eric (Derek), wrote a whole album about how much he loved his best friend's wife and really made things weird for himself. After that didn't go exactly as he'd hoped, he decided to love heroine instead and disappeared to explore that relationship for ~3 years. His emergence in 1974 might be one of the great heist stories of our time... He recorded this album of cover songs, and he finally started living with Pattie Boyd (the Chekhov's Best-Friend's-Wife we met in Act 1). I guess he had to get sober on his own, but he probably would have stolen that too if he could have.
This album (again, of mostly cover songs) really shows Clapton struggling to figure out who he is and experimenting with different musical styles. He still manages to keep things pretty middle-of-the-road, with no ambitious swings and no virtuoso guitar soloing. He did write two songs for this album: "Get Ready" with guest vocalist Yvonne Elliman, and "Let It Grow" which he later admitted is basically a rip-off of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven". The former is a highpoint of the album, and the latter could be a good song as well if it wasn't for the stolen valor of it all.
The big hit from this record, a cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff", was a track that Clapton apparently didn't even want to record or put on the album. It's certainly a standout track and, in my opinion, marks a turning point in the album. Whereas the songs before ISTS feel lively, sometimes almost jam band-y, the back-end of the album feels a little darker/muddier. For the sake of my Spotify algorithm, I refuse to listen to this album a 3rd time to validate that opinion, but that was my impression on the 2nd listen.
Sometimes I listen to these albums and then explore the rest of the artist's catalogue, but today I put on Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive (1976) as a palate cleanser. It is a good match to the tone of the first 1/2 of 461 Ocean Boulevard, and somehow Frampton's guitar playing succeeds in sounding more like Clapton than Clapton's does on this record.
The Zombies
3/5
The Zombies’ sound blends elements of The Beatles, The Monkees, The Beach Boys, and at times, early pieces of Queen. The harmonies are impeccable and they cover a wide range on this album - from classic barbershop-style pop to ominous psychedelic rock. Not really ‘fuzzy guitar’ psychedelic rock, it’s more the organs, glockenspiels, and woodwinds kind.
I had high hopes for this album after the Young Rascals album I reviewed a few weeks ago. This album is a perfectly cliche late 60s pop/rock album, but it leans more pop and that's not what I wanted. “Time Of The Season” is a classic, and there’s a reason it’s used so often in tv/movies to quickly establish a scene in the late 60s, but beyond that, there's not much here for me.
John Lennon
3/5
This album feels a lot like an extension of The Beatles, at least compared to the post-Beatles McCartney albums I’ve heard. George Harrison played guitar on some of it, so that probably helped. If you’re a Beatles fan, this one might be for you!
I’m glad the whole album doesn’t demand the same gravitas as the title track, but putting “Imagine” first kinda starts things on a somber note. I’m sure John made that choice because he wanted people to hear his important thesis first; that’s SO John. I know it’s supposed to be hopeful, but I’ve always found that song to be kind of a bummer and would rather hear it at the end of the record. He also included a Paul McCartney diss track (“How Do You Sleep?”), which is definitely not weird at all!
I don’t think I’ll be seeking out a vinyl copy, but this was fine.
Wire
4/5
Wire apparently refuse(d) to call themselves punk, so I guess we’ll call this post-punk. In reality, this album is so close to punk that I wouldn’t make that distinction on my own.
If you listen to much punk rock, you’ve probably heard a few of these songs: “Mannequin”, “Three Girl Rhumba”, and “Ex Lion Tamer” are most likely, and “Lowdown” is also a possibility.
The standout track for me is “Pink Flag” because it’s almost 4min long and has a very “set-ending” breakdown towards the end - a weird thing to put int he middle of your album. I looked it up and this track would have ended side one of the vinyl, which helps explain the placement.
Their resistance to being called punk has me curious how their sound develops on future records, though not curious enough to dig in today.
Nirvana
4/5
In the 90s, this set was reverently mentioned like it was The Beatles playing Ed Sullivan. Even the phrase "MTV Unplugged" just kinda meant THIS set (never mind all the other artists who appeared on the show). As someone who only got 'plugged in' to Nirvana after Kurt Cobain's death, these tracks were always just part of their catalog of hits to me, even though most of them were obscure album tracks or covers.
It's a little crazy to think about them doing this and NOT playing the hits; the fact that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" isn't part of this show is a wild (but very punk rock) move! I have deep respect for the consideration that went into this setlist, it's clear that they considered which of their songs would fit the setting instead of just strumming out their classics on acoustic instruments.
Recorded just months before Cobain's death, this would be Nirvana's final act; a requiem for their short reign at the top of rock & roll. If anything, I think the earnestness of this set helped cement Nirvana's legacy - before Unplugged they were easy to dismiss as a bunch of angsty boys making noise, but this evening revealed a deeper musicianship that nobody really expected. And with no follow-up albums, this just pours gasoline on the "what could have been" fire.
Had Kurt lived, I wonder what would have happened next. Maybe Nirvana break up anyway and we get Lennon/McCartney 2.0 where Dave Grohl goes off to do Foo Fighters and Kurt Cobain starts a new project too. What would that have looked like? I guess we'll never know.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
From limited pop culture references and context clues (ok, they were mentioned on an episode of How I Met Your Mother along with a clip of "We Rule The School"), I expected B&S to be a variation of quiet acoustic folk music. Upon listening to this, I'm pleasantly surprised to discover there's more to the story. It's not even just a duo of someone named Belle and someone named Sebastian! All of these songs were written by lead singer, Stuart Murdoch, and originally performed solo but they've been developed further to utilize a full band (including strings, brass, and woodwinds!). The album is much more indie rock than it is folk, and it's hard to imagine what the solo versions would have originally sounded like. I came in expecting Simon & Garfunkel, but got something more akin to a Paul Simon solo album.
Without a specific nostalgic reason to love this album, I don't. It's fine, but it doesn't wow me and I'm not at risk of making this my whole personality. I understand there are more B&S albums on the list, so we'll see if my opinion changes after those.
"Electronic Resistance" - feels like the biggest experiment on the album. It's a nice little New Wave bop nestled into the middle of the album and if I have to choose a favorite song, this would be it.
"I Could Be Dreaming" - I felt a little crazy when the female spoken word part started fading in. It's like listening to a song with a police siren when you're in the car - except you're not looking for cops, you're looking for a schizophrenia diagnosis.
"We Rule The School" - the song that formed my whole opinion of this band. It's pretty non-representative of the album/band, so I'm a little disappointed that HIMYM chose this song.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
Nick Cave is an artist I hear people talk about all the time but I've managed to stay completely ignorant of for my entire life (plus 3 years). Going into this, I know he's got a devoted fanbase but I have no concept of what his music sounds like. And now I get to find out with a double album, that's kinda fun!
His voice has a lounge singer bravado/sleeze - a dark theatricality -that I do occasionally find compelling (The The, Electric Six, some Tom Waits, The Oogie Boogie Man in Nightmare Before Christmas, Dracula in Jason Segel's Dracula Musical "A Taste For Love", Richard Cheese, etc). It's compelling here, but it begins to wear on me over the course of the first disc. Thankfully, it's muted on the second record as they shift into more downtempo songs.
"Get Ready For Love" - Starting the album with an in-your-face blues/rock song definitely makes me feel like I'm joining a conversation already in progress; there's no chance to get my bearings before getting the full force of NC&TBS directly in my face. It's their 13th album, so I guess they've pretty well established their sound and can expect you to know what you're getting into when you press play.
"Cannibal's Hymn" - so close to being an earnest version of the Jason Segel Dracula Musical "Die. Die. Die. I Can't" that it hurts.
"Nature Boy" - I missed this one initially, but on second listen this one stood out for me like "Supernaturally" did on my first pass.
"Supernaturally" - this is the fourth-to-last song on the album, but it's the track that finally swayed me from "this is fine" to "this is pretty good".
"O Children" - this must be the hit, because it has almost 200M more listens than any other song on the record. The backing vocals and harmonies were one of my favorite features of "Supernaturally", and they're back in full force here.
The Electric Prunes
2/5
The most psychedelic thing about this album is how it feels like you’re doing drugs when you listen to it. It starts with the actually quite good and normal psych-rock hit “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)” and then over the course of the album gets more strange until you end with a ragtime nightmare ride on “The Toonerville Trolley”.
The song order doesn’t make a lot of sense, so the album has no flow from track to track. Since so much of this album feels tongue-in-cheek, maybe they did that on purpose? The band name and inceptional album cover art both feel like an intentional jokes, so I’ll assume they’re leaning in as much as possible.
The Smiths
2/5
Besides whatever personal/political reasons people don't like Morrissey (I haven't bothered to look into it), I just don't like his voice. On paper, this kind of post-punk new wave should be a big hit with me... except for that one important detail. If there is an album of instrumentals, or other bands covering all of these songs, I may be interested in those, but I just can't suffer Morrissey's whining for more than a few minutes without wanting to also start whining.
My favorite part of the album is the last ~2min of "Barbarism Begins At Home", which is a fun, funky, bass-heavy instrumental jam. It's also followed by the 2 minute intro of "Meat Is Murder" which means you get almost 4 whole minutes without Morrissey singing. Who could ask for more?
Little Simz
3/5
Female rappers have a hard time breaking through in America, so it’s easy to miss an artist like this if you’re not really plugged into the hiphop underground. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very plugged into in 2019 and missed this. Much like Leikeli47 or Angel Haze, Little Simz has some bangers here that I’m frustrated more people don’t know. I haven’t dug into her other albums yet, but I’m sure there are other gems in there too.
Added to my playlists:
“Venom” - based on Spotify listens, this was the big single.
“101 FM” - this was the track that popped out at me on every listen through the album.
Brian Wilson
2/5
I've mentioned before that I don't really care for Brian Wilson, so I was pretty pessimistic about this album. It starts like a pretty standard BW/Beach Boys project and even includes a rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" which really threatened to send me over the edge. Immediately after that though, is "Cabin Essence" which gets a little weird - to the point that it almost sounds like they lose the rhythm at one point before recovering. From there it continues to stay a little strange, even when it threatens to straighten out and be bland there's a subversiveness to arrangements.
The whole album feels like you took drugs and then pushed play on a Beach Boys album... which is probably exactly what Brian Wilson was going for. A fun concept but I wish it was done by an artist I like more.
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
Starting a Monday morning with “Monday, Monday” is kinda fun, but otherwise I wasn't excited about this one.
Based on some of the other album selections on this list, the fact that this record contains the Billboard number 1 single of 1966, "California Dreaming'", is probably enough to warrant its inclusion. However, even if you throw that one out, you still get "Monday, Monday" "Go Where You Wanna Go" and "Do You Wanna Dance"(admittedly not the most iconic cover of this song) along with a slew of other smooth 60s pop-folk songs. Not quite my thing, but it's hard to argue with the reach and influence of this album and of the group.
The Libertines
3/5
This is punk-adjacent indie rock, and they sound very nostalgic for The Clash at times. But there is a splash of new wave here too, and some more mainstream brit-rock creeping in (also some errant horns and harmonica!). The vocals are...bad? I'm sure they work when mixed down on stage, but it's hard to hide in the studio. All in all, this is kind of a choppy experience and you never know what the next track will give you. Some tracks, like "Music When The Lights Go Out" can't seem to pick a tempo to last 3 minutes and vacillate back and forth between frenetic and meandering. If Carl & Pete's relationship was the same way, it's no wonder they broke up.
Part of my thinks I would have enjoyed this if I heard it in 2006, but I don't think it would have made it into my CD rotation for the same reasons it won't today. But I probably would have seen them live.
“Can’t Stand Me Now” - The big hit, based on the Spotify streams. A solid, slightly new wave, opening track with a surprise harmonica appearance in the outro.
"Don't Be Shy" - Nobody should write songs with high notes that they can't hit. Especially in the chorus.
"What Katie Did" - even on this rollercoaster, I didn't expect a 'shoo wop' song.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
I had no idea I needed an album of African music married to American Blues, but I did and now I have it. Sometimes, the list delivers.
I feel like I've been a student of blues guitar for a major portion of my life and I'm a little ashamed that I'd never come across Ali Farka Toure before today. To compensate, I've spent the day dabbling in his catalog. This album shines when AFT takes the lead and we get his style of mellow African blues, but there are times when (I assume) Ry Cooder takes the reins and we get a bolder version of 'American South' Blues. Those are my least favorite moments because they kill the momentum of the album for me. Don't get me wrong, I love the blues, but I'm here to listen to Ali Farka Toure be "the African John Lee Hooker" not Ry Cooder trying to be John Lee Hooker. The collaboration is successful in eliciting more blues than AFT typically employs on his own records, and that's a plus even if it's overdone at times.
Overall, Ali Farka Toure is a big thumbs up from me!
Jorge Ben Jor
5/5
Is this the perfect music for a chilly Thursday morning in the American midwest? Today it is. It only took 1/2 the album to decide that I wanted to live here forever.
Maybe I'd find a reason to rate it lower if I understood the lyrics, but I'm not burdened with that problem today. I listened to it twice and then spent the rest of the morning in his discography. Brazilian music will always have a place in my heart, shut up and take my five stars.
The Doors
3/5
I didn’t expect to say this, but I’m less annoyed by this than I was the debut album. It’s certainly not because Jim Morrison sounds any less arrogant (I mean, the whole album is named after him this time!), but I guess he’s actually earned some of it by this stage of his career. His audible disinterest has the effect of making him sound more like a lounge singer than a pompous a**hole here, and I think that’s kinda fun.
“Peace Frog” - this was the most fun I had here, what a nice funky track
“Land Ho!” - Morrison is audibly bored except when he shouts “Land Ho!” with half his chest and only sounds indifferent.
I’m not surprised at all that the first four tracks (“Beautiful Day”, “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”, “Elevation”, & “Walk On”) were singles… the rest of the album is, unfortunately, pretty bad. Like, notably bad. It’s true that I don’t like Bono, but let’s remember that I was able to look past that to rate The Joshua Tree highly. I’m telling you that, personal opinions about Bono aside, I also don’t like this album for completely separate and equally valid reasons.
From “Kite” onward, I kept hoping they were just in a bad streak and we’d get another secret banger but it never happened. Almost every album needs a little filler, right? This one shoulda been a EP. One of the most disappointing songs was “Peace On Earth” because you can’t name a song that and not go all-in to make it an anthem, right? You probably need a big choir for backing vocals, some orchestral embellishments, a big producer to be brutally honest with you about the song, and really throw everything you have at it, right? The vocal performance is trying to be that song, but they didn’t do any of the other work to get it there. It probably does well in an amphitheater full of U2 nerds, but it’s not going to bring the world together.
Overall this is a disappointment. 13years after The Joshua Tree, the singles prove that they still have it, but the other songs suggest that there are two strikeouts for every homerun.
Beck
3/5
I don’t feel like this one is as revolutionary as Odelay! but Beck continues to test the limits of genre mashing here. From that perspective, the most popular tracks “E-Pro” and “Go It Alone” are a few of the safer songs on the record, but that’s not entirely surprising.
This record does feel like it gets darker than I recall Odelay! getting, which was interesting to hear. I know "Broken Drum" was written about the death of his friend (and fellow musician), Elliott Smith. Even before I found that out, I had it flagged as one of my standout tracks.
Elliott Smith
3/5
I struggled to connect with Either/Or when I listened to that record, but this one is a little easier to access. It’s still a very sad album and maybe I don’t want to connect with it *too much*, but I’ll figure it out. Musically this is a lot more interesting, and we're creeping ever closer to the establishment of Emo music (exciting!). The fuller sound here naturally begs all the “what if” questions about the music we might have gotten if ES lived longer. All the pieces are here, it just needed a some more development to be great.
My biggest criticism of this album is that Elliot's voice sometimes limits these songs. It works great for the acoustic stuff, but when the arrangements get bigger, his voice doesn't seem to rise to meet them. I'm sure you can think of someone you know whose normal voice is barely above a whisper, and whose version of shouting would pass as a normal conversational volume for everyone else... Well, that's how Elliot sounds sometimes; like he can't open up his chest and stop singing through his nose. The resulting vocals can almost sound off key. "Son Of Sam" is a notable exception here, and serves as proof that he was actually capable of singing with his chest.
"Pretty Mary Kay" & "Better Be Quiet Now" - these are so Beatles coded you could convince me they're covers.
The Jam
3/5
Right here at the beginning I'll be very clear that I don't think it's fair to dedicate so much of this list to deep-diving the history of punk/new wave. Clearly the original author, Robert Dimery, has some bias, but I realize the list isn't called "The 1001 Most Influential Albums Of All Time", instead it's basically the "Hey, you should listen to these 1001 albums" list. Fine, he covered his bias. On balance, I don't know if this really belongs on a list like this, but I'm a fan of punk/new wave and don't mind being given this album as homework (even if I'm not as Brit-centric as Robert).
In the grand scheme, this album is pretty unremarkable. If you're not already excited for post punk then I don't expect there's anything here to grab you. I hear pieces of all the post-punk that preceded this album, and seeds of the new wave that would follow it. Not enough to be convinced that this was an outsized influence on later bands, but enough to understand why you'd make it a reference point in your thesis about the history of new wave.
Bill Evans Trio
4/5
Piano Jazz isn't exactly my wheelhouse but if I'm going to listen to it, I think this will be the record. This is the non-Christmas background music you want for your winter dinner party, or a cozy night at home with a fire going.
This was the final performance with bassist Scott LaFaro, who died in a car accident 11 days later. His bass work is intentionally showcased here as tribute, and even without the backstory it's hard not to notice his performance. Bill Evans has called this the best version of 'the Trio', and I'm not bold enough to question that.
Secretly, I wish it wasn't a live album because the occasional applause breaks pull me out of my cozy solitude. However, I don't think you'd get the same magic in a studio recording. I'll cope.
Ride
3/5
I don't know much about shoegaze, and I wouldn't have initially classified this as such at first. The album opener, "Seagull", has some moments that sound like Nirvana or mid-90s Green Day and I would have leaned into the Indie/Alternative label. As it progresses, the album does begin to meander in slightly more ethereal sounds and we start the shoegazing. There are whispers of The Cure all over, and lots of vocals that sound like they were recorded in a bedroom at 12pm while trying not to wake the parents.
We get sparkly U2 guitars on "Dreams Burn Down", which I enjoy more when decoupled from Bono's vocals.
Overall, I think I agree with the Spotify listener public... "Paralysed" and everything after "Taste" aren't very riveting and I understand why they all have sub-1M listens.
Pixies
3/5
This is quite a rebound from 1988’s Surfer Rosa. Outside of “Where Is My Mind?”, that album is a pretty abrasive record. Clearly Pixies learned their lesson and shifted a little more to the center here (or they just grew up a little more, who knows).
If "Where is My Mind?" was a pop-leaning outlier on Surfer Rosa, then "Here Comes Your Man" is Doolittle's unabashed attempt to storm the mainstream. Where as WIMM? is arguably the saving grace of Surfer Rosa, HCYM feels like the pockmark on an otherwise pretty lovely pre-grunge record. Songs like "Debaser", "Monkey Gone To Heaven", and "Hey" would have been plenty to anchor this record had it been released in the Grunge(TM) era. I guess that’s the pitfall of being ahead of your time. Based on the album art, Pixies seemed to know "Monkey Gone To Heaven" was the track to hang their hat on and I'd have to agree.
On my “Bands That Influenced Nirvana” list, Surfer Rosa put Pixies well below Fugazi, but this record might pull them even. Still can’t compare to The Shaggs though!
Other call-outs:
"I Bleed" - imagine being a diehard Weezer fan, then you hear this and find out your whole life is a lie.
"There Goes My Gun" - it’s like they said 'let's redo "Here Comes Your Man" but more punk and make the harmonies bad. Yeah, that'll show 'em!'
"Silver" - when you only have 36min of material recorded, I guess you let Kim channel her inner Yoko Ono to write an extra filler track.
Eagles
3/5
I knew I’d have to listen to this at some point and here we are. The Eagles are very boring, but I guess that appeals to a lot of people. I was impressed by the bass/percussion on “Hotel California”, I feel like I’ve only ever listens to the guitar/vocals and missed a redeeming quality of the song. “Life In The Fast Lane” is the anthem for office workers who need to feel like their life is still exciting. "Try and Love Again" is also fine. Behind that, idk, I fell asleep (honestly).
Fiona Apple
4/5
If you told me this morning that I’d end up listening to this 4-5 times today, I would have called you a liar to your face… and then I would have acted against my own self interest and non listened to it that many times even though I kinda wanted to. That’s just the kinda person I am, and maybe that contrarian impulse is exactly why this (objectively weird) pop album resonates with me.
The autobiographical songwriting feels very akin to a Taylor Swift album but where Taylor can feel like musical theater, this feels more like open mic poetry reading. The lyrics are raw, personal, sometimes dark, and sometimes darkly funny. The instrumentation and song structures feel very improvised which I’d later find out is because they were. I spent at least two full listens debating what genre this actually was, and if I’d classify this as jazz. Apparently someone decided it’s just pop, so well just stick with that.
I went into this cold, without the backstory or the circumstances of the recordings or anything. I still don’t know the stories behind most of the lyrics, but I now understand that this was recorded at Fiona’s house over a period of about 5 years with a few collaborators and edited entirely with GarageBand.
Dire Straits
3/5
This is a much more dynamic album than 1978's "Dire Straits" (previously reviewed). But I'm not sure if that means it's better. If Dire Straits was a bunch of songs all iterating the same idea, this album is a bunch of ideas competing for album time.
"Money For Nothing" and "Walk Of Life" were big 'ol hits, so this album sold a lot of copies. Then there's tracks like "Your Latest Trick" which starts with a long saxophone intro that's a little reminiscent of a Herb Alpert bossa nova trumpet part... uh, what? And African flutes and a lot of Pink Floyd vibes on "Ride Across The River". Despite all of that, the album still just feels lethargic. As unimpressed as I was with the self titled album, I think I preferred that to this?
David Bowie
3/5
As an album, this isn't very cohesive and I'm not sure I can speak about it as one thing. There are moments here that I really like, and some that I don't have any feelings about.
This was recorded during the time when Bowie was living and working with Iggy Pop in Berlin - Bowie would record three albums, produce two for Iggy, and tour as Iggy's keyboardist. Wild. I'd love to say you can hear all of that extra-curricular punk rock in this album but I don't know that you can - if anywhere, "Joe The Lion" and the intro to "Black Out" show the most influence. I'll also mention Robert Fripp (the founder of King Crimson) who played guitar on this album. I mention prog rock in my notes below, and I wrote that before I knew about Fripp's participation. I think that says everything.
"Beauty and the Beast" - The lead-off track is a great callback to the plastic soul on 1975's Young Americans (the last Bowie album I reviewed).
"Joe the Lion" - this feels like it started as an Iggy Pop song but then Bowie kept working on it until it was his. A great example of how punk became post-punk.
"Heroes" - ended up being one of Bowie's most enduring classics.
"Sons of the Silent Age" - Feels like a callback to 1969's "Space Oddity".
"Black Out" - If there's any lingering doubt about Bowie's influence on establishing new wave as a genre, convince me this couldn't be a Talking Heads song.
"V-2 Schneider" - A little bit prog rock, a little bit new wave, a bold amount of saxophones. Basically an instrumental but they sing the song title a few times.
"Sense of Doubt", "Moss Garden", and "Neukoln" are a real departure from the first side of this record. These are all kinda strange instrumentals that go in different directions.
"The Secret Life of Arabia" - We finally get lyrics on side 2! After the instrumentals, this was a good palate cleanser for me.
Small Faces
2/5
This was ok until the narration stuff started on side 2. I saw a few reviews that mention this is like a Monty Python parody of psychedelic rock, and it’s hard to disagree. The only reason I’d come back here is to share the absurdity with someone who’s never heard it… so, in that way, I guess it makes sense that it’s on the list of albums you must hear before you die.
Paul Revere & The Raiders
2/5
Unfortunately, by 1966, the British had already come. I'm sure this was good in its time, but outside of "Kicks" and "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone" I don't remember anything that stood out (and I tried listening to it 3 times). Much like the New Wave albums - I like Psych Rock, but I don't think I need to hear EVERY record in the genre before I die.
The Band
3/5
“The Weight” is a classic - how many movies have had their happy ending set to this song? But the rest of this felt very monotonous (in the “monotone” sense more than the “long and tedious” sense). If you’re going to be THE Band, I need you to do more. The other standout for me would be "I Shall Be Released", but the Neil Young-esque falsetto vocals don't work for me here.
For the most part, this is solid (if totally ignorable) background music.
Soft Cell
2/5
This album started well enough. I didn’t love it, but it wasn’t awful.. even if I came into it with prejudice because of how synth pop killed new wave. Unfortunately, after 4-5 songs it starts to fall apart. Track 5, “Sex Dwarf”, is simultaneously a high and low point, as it's both pretty funny and pretty awful. I can’t think of a good reason to recommend anyone even bother with side 2 of this record.
Only a true masochist would listen through the extra tracks on Spotify to go the full 1hr 14min. I did it, but I was on the train home from Chicago after riding my bike 350 miles in 2.5 days to get there.
X-Ray Spex
4/5
I totally didn’t know what I was pressing play on here but… female punk with saxophones?! I did nothing to deserve this gift.
I've circled back to this one a few times in the last week because it's so fun and novel and I can't believe I don't hear it get talked about more. We saw a lot of "girl bands" in the 80s (The Bangels, The Go-Go's, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, etc), and it feels like Poly Styrene and the gang could have really hit it big if they weren't 4-5 years ahead of their time.
We need more saxophones in punk rock (that ISN'T ska).
The Notorious B.I.G.
4/5
A classic.
The skits and interludes wreck the flow of an otherwise pretty great album. Like many other reviews, those are gonna cost this album a full star. The misogyny (all over this album) doesn’t age well, but we’d go a long way towards cleaning that up if we just threw out those skits/interludes. I’d like to believe Biggie would have grown up and done better if he lived longer, but the recent Sean Combs (Puff Daddy, Puffy, P-Ditty, et al.) court case suggests he probably wouldn’t have.
Subject matter aside, Biggie’s flow is silky smooth and the production is impeccable. This is on a similar level to Nas’s Illmatic in the pantheon of great hiphop debuts, but I only have one of them on vinyl (and I have two copies of that one).
Sisters Of Mercy
4/5
Generating this album on a rainy day during Halloween week is a cheap ratings ploy but the joke's on you, 1001albumsgenerator, because I'd probably rate this favorably anyway! And then I'd complain that I didn't get to listen to it closer to Halloween. There's a campiness here that I can't quite decide whether they were in on or not. If not, the sense of earnestness is endearing. Other reviews mention this sounding like Meatloaf collaborating with The Cure, or like Dracula tried to make a New Wave album, and I can hear both. It's fun!
Goth New Wave probably spawned a lot of dark Industrial music and influenced much of the music I listened to at the end of highschool. It's hard to say Sisters Of Mercy were a direct influence on Type O Negative (TON started as a very Metal/Thrash band), but I do think they settled down into a similar kind of 'Industrial Metal Shoegaze' sound later in their run; their album October Rust (a personal favorite October listen) definitely has echos of this album throughout. If you're looking for more contemporary influencees(?) this album calls to mind bands like She Wants Revenge or Heavens.
I'll probably only listen to this album one month out of the year, but I can see myself absolutely basking in it for that month.
Public Enemy
4/5
This could be a top tier album if it wasn’t for Flava Flav. Sorry, I said it. The hype man stuff is one thing, but they give him one track, “Cold Lampin’ With Flavor”, and it’s the absolute low point of the album.
You know the big hits, so I’ll skip those. My surprise tracks include “She Watch Channel Zero?!”, and “Party For Your Right To Fight”.
Dwight Yoakam
3/5
Classic tapedeck country music. I’m sure a lot of these lyrics don’t age all that well, but I can’t be bothered to listen that closely. I don't need the specifics to know Dwight is vaguely sad and that's really all I need from my country music.
Dwight Yoakam was a borderline-unfortunate looking guy in 1988, and time hasn’t blessed him in that respect. Fortunately, he can sing and play enough guitar to support himself. I trust that he’s experienced with heartbreak and things not going his way, so these songs sound genuinely autobiographical to me.
R.E.M.
3/5
I swore I already listened to one, but apparently this is my first R.E.M. album from the list. I'll admit that, for reasons not fully known to me, I've never particularly cared for Michael Stipe. Maybe I saw him acting too self serious in an MTV interview once upon a time or something. With the exception of the unavoidable radio hits (a few of which are featured here), my prejudice has kept me away from the R.E.M. catalog for most of my life. I'm willing to put that to rest and see what I've been missing... but does this list really need four R.E.M. albums? let's find out!
I'm obviously jumping into the middle here. This is the band's fifth studio album and I'm coming in with basically no context for the four prior albums. My first impression is that the lyrics are very punk rock, but the overall sound is... not. If punk rock is cheap beer, this feels more akin to a cheap coffee. It's an interesting juxtaposition. "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" bridges the gap a little bit and I appreciate that. For the sake of belaboring a dead horse, we'll say there's whiskey in that particular cup of coffee.
There's a thread here that extends forward to "August And Everything After" by Counting Crows (not on the list), which was/is an important touchstone album for me and would be at the top of my personal 'required listening' list. For that influence alone, I probably owe R.E.M. more deference than I've ever given them. R.E.M. deserves to be on this list, but I'm still undecided if I need to do this three more times.
Prince
3/5
I don't talk about Prince very much, but I probably should. He certainly deserves to be in the Funk/New Wave conversation I've been having for the last few months. This is just as weird (or more so) than Talking Heads, it's even more out there than The The, and I love that.
This album is a party? Maybe that should be a statement. Like, this would have come out in a time when it was hard to buy compilations and there was no way to easily build your own playlist, so I'm convinced this record was built to be a 'press play to party' record. That's kinda neat, Prince is the right guy for that.
Maybe I'll revise this rating up in the future, but let me see how I feel about the rest of the Prince catalog.
Les Rythmes Digitales
2/5
When I refreshed my 1001AG page this morning (Sunday, Nov 2nd), I saw the cover of this and - knowing absolutely nothing else - said to my partner 'Oh great, looks like I get to listen to some turn-of-the-millenium techno wanker today', and that's exactly what I did with the extra hour daylight savings gave me today. There's not a lot more for me to say about this one. If you like repetitive dance music, this is for you.
It's also fun that his watch says 12:14 which is 2x 6:7. An easteregg 26 years in the making.
King Crimson
3/5
I expected this to be weird and nerdy, but was surprised that it didn't go as far as I thought it would. At least not until side two.
The first track, "21st Century Schizoid Man", throws you right into the deep end with its distorted opening chorus, 'hard rock' guitars, and wailing woodwinds. The way they don't build it up makes it feel more like a reprise than a first listen, which is quite a way to start the first track of your first album. I've mentioned this on other records and my usual note is "it's like you're joining a conversation already in progress", but usually the band has put out a few records and has some expectation that the audience knows their sound. It moves pretty quickly from that chorus into jazz-style soloing without much segue. "21st Century Schizoid Man" feel like King Crimson's statement piece and it's no wonder it gets sampled pretty often (probably most notably on Kanye West's "Power").
They back off somewhat (but keep the woodwinds!) for "I Talk To The Wind". This feels like a much more approachable starting point for most people in 1969. It's pop and psych-rock, with a little bit of jazz - a far cry from the onslaught of sound in the first track.
"Epitaph" wraps up the first side of the record, and does well to combine the sounds we've already heard into a single (nearly 9 minute long) opus. The cinematic soundscape paints an expansive and optimistic picture for the bleak lyrics to trample over, if you let them. This is probably my standout track of the record, but I don't think you should go into it without warming up with the preceding songs.
Side two is where things feel firmly prog rock-y. "Moonchild" seems to borrow more from experimental jazz (think "Bitches Brew" era Miles Davis) than from anything in rock & roll. It's the album's least played track on Spotify and not hard to guess why. "The Court Of The Crimson King" is an appropriate title track for the record. It collects all the pieces into one track and gives us the classic 'renaissance fair rock' sound that defines early prog-rock for me.
In my review of David Bowie's "Heroes" I mentioned that David Fripp (the mastermind of King Crimson) was a collaborator, and it makes a lot of sense why they got along. I'm sure Bowie had heard this record, but I wish he and Fripp could have connected during the Ziggy Stardust era.
There are 5 tracks and I like 3 of them, and maybe an extra half point for overall concept, brings me to a 3.5/5
Kraftwerk
3/5
I was instilled with a healthy respect for Kraftwerk when I was in highschool. I never really listened to them, but I understood that they were the seed from which modern electronic music grew. Listening to this in the same week as that Les Rhythmes Digitales album (Darkdancer) really highlights how much this genre developed from 1977 to 1999. By comparison, Kraftwerk sounds like a collection of demos still looking for a producer/collaborator to step in and punch them up. This album has “good bones” but just feels undercooked by modern standards.
The vocals in particular feel like placeholders. Where you’d use a sample or bring in a real singer to belt out your vocal tracks today, Kraftwerk vocals are mostly just a guy speak-singing in a flat-toned German accent. It’s charming, for sure, but not a recipe for pop success. Have you seen that viral clip from the show X Factor where the guy (Beck Martin) sings the “It’s Friday Night” song? Go look it up. Kraftwerk vocals feel kinda like that. A few tracks, "Europe Endless" and "Endless Endless" do feature more distorted/digital/robotic vocals, but the rest of the album feels very unfinished in this respect.
Daft Punk
3/5
Daft Punk's Discovery (2001) was the first electronic album I ever bought. That was my entry point to the genre and, in many ways, the measuring stick I use to judge all other electronic music. This record isn't quite as tight as Discovery, and the back half really seems to drag on forever... but it does have "Da Funk" and "Around The World" on it, so it's not a total write-off.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
I was a little dismissive about this when it popped up this morning. I was only half paying attention to the first few tracks, but it managed to pull me back in the second half. I gave it a more intentional listen and, to my surprise, I enjoyed this more than I did Blue. I understand that this came out later but hearing this first might have positively changed my mind about Blue and Joni as an artist.
The production is very good across the album, and there's a lot of depth to explore - there are additional instruments and subtle layers that are easy to miss if you're not listening for them. I think her songwriting style (unstructured, unbothered to tie itself to choruses) lends itself to jazz and the album really comes alive when it gets jazzy in the backend. Overall, I prefer the second half of this album but that doesn't look like a popular opinion, based on the Spotify listen counts.
It’s got everything I'd need in a ‘weekend morning’ record and I’d consider putting it in my rotation.
Fiona Apple
4/5
Yesterday I got Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark, and after the album ended Spotify played “Shadowboxer”. I guess Spotify and 1001AG had the same idea as I’m being “forced” to listen to this album today. So let’s pretend like I didn’t listen to it yesterday (or several times a few weeks ago) and talk about it.
In her own words, Apple says this album "was more for the sake of proving myself; telling people from my past something. And to also try to get friends for the future." Which are things she doesn't seem to concern herself with in later records. You can hear her trying a little too hard in some parts, but I know enough about the late 90s record industry to guess that likely wasn't all her fault. The machine needed things that sounded like Alanis Morrisette's juggernaut album, Jagged Little Pill (1995), so there's no way this record was shipping without a few songs that leaned more alt-rock madgirl than jazz-pop sadgirl. To satisfy the former we get "Shadowboxer" and "Criminal", and those are followed by "Slow Like Honey" and "The First Taste" which are prime examples of the latter. If you only have twenty minutes for this record, those four tracks are #3-6. [insert several winking emojis]
Finley Quaye
2/5
It’s uncomfortable to declare cultural appropriation on someone of another culture who’s appropriating a third culture. A Ghanaian Scot making pop-adjacent Reggae (with a fake Jamaican accent?) is a British colonial fever dream I didn’t have on my bingo card.
I appreciate that this album sold well in the UK in the 90s, but it didn’t make a splash in America. In fact, if you exclude Ska, I don’t recall Reggae as a genre having a meaningful moment in America in the 90s. I understand America isn’t the center of the universe, but I’m trying to suggest that this was a very regional success that didn’t have any impact on the broader music industry. Putting it on this list is like me finding my copy of Sugar Ray’s hit 1997 record “Floored” in my CD case and deciding the whole world needs to listen to it because I remember liking it when I was 11. Or insisting that this list include an album by The Urge because they were huge in my city in the 90/00s.
For the most part, this is a nice, relaxing, ‘feel good’ record but it doesn’t make a lasting impression (except for the cultural appropriation). It should be firmly below the cut line for the next list update.
Koffi Olomide
2/5
Before I listened to this, I saw that this guy was convicted of statutory rape (of a 15yo backup dancer). That makes it difficult to separate art from artist, so I won’t.
This sounds like the kind of cliche music that White Lotus would use to establish the scene for a new season set in Congo (or, if we’re honest, anywhere in Africa). It’s the kind of carefree and danceable music people look for when they’re dabbling in World music, and I’m sure there’s another, less controversial, musician that sounds just like Kofi Olomide whom I could listen to without the inner conflict. I genuinely don’t care if it’s just a cover band either, as long as they’re from Africa and not sex criminals. Let’s maybe find them for the next list update?
Boston
3/5
I always forget how quickly “More Than A Feeling” ramps up. One minute in and it feels like it’s already the middle of the song and the solos are coming. It’s an intense way to kick off an album (and a debut album, at that).
Even if you’re under 40, you’ve probably heard every song on side one of this record. Side two doesn’t provide as many bangers, but all the songs sound a lot like side one and it’s not hard to imagine a world where they’re all hits too. Any maybe that’s my complaint about the record; it’s all a bit “one note”, isn’t it? Fortunately, it’s a pretty fun note.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
In college I helped a fraternity brother "acquire" this album (and Ocean Rain) from the internet because it wasn't readily available on the popular apps all the kids were using. I know I listened to this album once I had it, but it didn't make much of an impression. Twenty years later, I have a better understanding of post-punk and new wave, but this still didn't make much impression.
This sub-genre of shoegaze-adjacent post-punk/new wave still isn't my thing. It's fine, but I don't really find anything sufficiently weird or infectious enough to grab my attention. I like more punk in my post-punk, and more funk in my new wave. Rather than a bunch of guys with avant-garde haircuts playing unremarkable music, I'd prefer dudes with unremarkable haircuts playing more avant-garde music. I'm going to put this firmly in the "Fine" zone, where I won't visit it for another twenty years.
10cc
3/5
I mentioned that I like weird things in my review yesterday and I should have known the algorithms were listening. From the reviews for this, I expected this to be way weirder than it is. It's certainly manic and there's a lot going on, but it's not The Residents or Lightning Bolt. This really leans into psychedelic rock, but with some heavier rock mixed in... Overall, their sound is kind of like a store brand version of Queen without the stellar harmonies or the charisma of Freddie Mercury. There's an occasional Pink Floyd quality too, but picture all the things Pink Floyd does in an 8 minute song condensed down to 3-4 minutes. If you had ADHD in 1974, it was probably fun to find an album that matched your frequency.
Notables (for various reasons):
"The Wall Street Shuffle"
"The Worst Band In The World"
"Silly Love"
"Somewhere In Hollywood"
"Baron Samedi"
"Oh Effendi"
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
I've mentioned before that I watched a lot of VH1 Behind the Music in the late 90s and early 00s, and the Fleetwood Mac episode was on frequently. I'm well aware of the soaps-opera lore of Fleetwood Mac, but I've never made myself delve all the way into this double album before.
My first impression is that it's... a lot. Twenty tracks split between three different lead vocalists makes this feel more like a playlist than an album. FM was hardly a unified band by 1979 and this album lays that bare.
I'm interested by all the talk of 'incorporating post-punk' to their sound here because I struggle to hear much of that in my first listen. Mostly, I hear a lot of lethargic/ethereal motifs that don’t make a huge impression. It’s an hour and fifteen minutes long, but after it’s over it doesn’t feel like it took that long. I guess that’s good? But it also means my brain immediately omitted a large portion of the album from memory. I appreciate them putting the title track, “Tusk”, second to last though, at least that track will stay fresh on my mind.
Buena Vista Social Club
4/5
My introduction to BVSC was the release of the live at Carnegie Hall record in the late 00s. At the time, I didn’t even know an earlier studio record existed, but I embraced the Carnegie Hall album completely (I even own the vinyl). It wasn’t until humiliatingly recently - like two weeks ago - that I fully realized this album existed and listened to it for the first time.
Obviously I'm a fan of BVSC and this album. There’s a little bit of magic in the live album that you don’t get here, but the studio clarity creates a richer mix of every musician’s contributions. Some of the compositions, like “Pueblo Nuevo”, seem built for a in-person jam and don't play so well in a studio recording. I'll also note (as others have) that the album seems to get tired as it goes on. It starts very energetic, and then slows down into ballads and piano tracks that don't bring the same energy. The live album seems to carry its energy longer so, I guess, just know your mood before choosing an adventure.
Gene Clark
2/5
Some of these tracks are literally “we have Bob Dylan at home” songs. And others sound like they were written by whatever teenage guitar shop employee first taught Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) how to play guitar licks. Then there are times like “Where My Love Lies Asleep” where I can hear exactly how Neil Young would sing the song in his signature falsetto, but Gene Clark doesn’t have that kind of dynamism. If you think all of those artists are OK, then this middle-of-the-road folk album might be the OK-est way to aim all of that apathy at one record.
Folk music for people who have only ever said “scrambled” when asked how they want their eggs cooked.
Ironically, the song “Tears Of Rage” started playing while I was wrapping up the thoughts above (yes, I’m only 1/2 way through my listen). Quite apropos.
Edit: I’ve now heard his version of “Stand By Me” and feel completely vindicated about my previous notes.
The Louvin Brothers
2/5
Traditional country music is just fine with me. I can handle it for the length of the album and a little longer… but not long enough to listen all the way through twice back-to-back; that’s just too much yodel & twang for me.
Despite their squeaky clean appearance, this album leans into some sad and dark subject matter that helped hold my interest longer than I expected. This is a good place to start if you’re looking for some background in traditional country and western music, so it's worth a listen from that perspective.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
Salsa feels like a pretty solid intersection of the Buena Vista Social Club record I reveiwed last week, and the classic Bossa Nova records that I'll sadly never get to review for this list.
I don't speak enough spanish to understand what they're talking about, except the part of "Pedro Navaja" where he says "La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
I like to live in America". Overall, a fun record to fill the salsa sized hole in your collection.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
On paper, Elvis Costello should check all the right boxes for me… but here I am, once again, writing a think piece about his voice. It’s kinda bad, right? I can tell he tries and he clearly writes songs for someone who can sing, but he always sounds just a little bit flat when he’s chasing notes. Sometimes it’s only a half step, but other times it feels like half an octave. I think maybe I’d like him more if he embraced his range and just did less. Maybe not. But his voice is literally all I can think about when I listen to his records, and that’s a shame. There’s a line in “Blue Chair” where he says “it’s your turn to cry and my turn to sing” and that feels like the most relatable lyric on the record.
I think I liked this more than Imperial Bedroom, but I’m still pretty apathetic about it. He’s got 33 studio albums, I’m sure there’s one out there for me.
The Zutons
3/5
I intended to be pretty standoffish about this, but I’ll be damned if the saxophone didn’t start winning me over 45sec. into the first track. Sadly, the sax is only a part-time contributor on this record; I guess a little bit is better than nothing though.
I'm not sure I absolutely needed to hear this album, but it was fun. It's predominantly early 00s indie rock (think Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, The Strokes, etc) with some heavy nostalgia for classic rock of the late 60s and early 70s. IDK whose friend the saxophone player is or how they got involved, but it's an endearing addition to the sound. They seem to wander around from hard rock to folk rock and everywhere in between. That approach is probably useful when you're playing small clubs and trying to win over as much of the audience as possible, but it doesn't lend itself to a totally coherent album.
Sheryl Crow
3/5
The singles from this album sell Sheryl as a country-adjacent singer songwriter, which is broadly accurate, but doesn't tell the whole story. Sure, there’s plenty of twang here, but it's all from the guitars and not the vocals. Where Shania Twain's story will be "Country goes Pop", this album makes Sheryl's feel kinda like "Pop goes Country". I'm sure I'm missing plenty of context for the state of pop radio in 1993, but this sounds like it might be an important milestone for country/rock crossovers. Would Shania’s crossover been as successful without this? What about Faith Hill or Taylor Swift? I won’t commit to giving Sheryl too much credit, but it feels kinda true.
Half of this album ended up as singles, so you've probably heard a good portion of this record already. Those singles are enough to keep you busy, but if you're interested in going deeper, I have two recs:
"Solidify" - this is pretty funky and I love the organ. It totally doesn't fit the rest of the album, but that's what makes it so fun.
"The Na-Na Song" - also a departure from the rest of the album. It borrows from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" in the same way that Beck's "Loser" (also 1993!) does. Loser is probably the better song, but I enjoyed this too.
The singles (in release order):
"Run Baby Run" - this didn't hit in 1993, but feels like a Sheryl Classic now.
"What I Can Do for You" - you probably don't know this song because it was released before Sheryl started to break through, but it should have been a bigger hit.
"Leaving Las Vegas"
"All I Wanna Do"
"Strong Enough"
"Can't Cry Anymore" - It's clear that they were courting country radio with this one. But, hot take: if they held "What I Can Do For You" until after Sheryl started breaking through, it could have been released here and this song wouldn't have been a single.
Judas Priest
3/5
Prior to this list I hadn’t spent much time pinning down exactly when certain music happened. To me, who was unborn until the mid-80s, this is classic "80s Metal" and it's wild to realize that it came out in 1980, was their SIXTH album, and they were already kinda famous. So I guess this is actually late 70s Metal and that puts JP squarely at the forefront of the genre. Some of this feels more like "Hard Rock" by modern standards, so it's a good place for the Metal-curious to start.
The genre is obviously defined by its crunchy distortion and 'widdly-wah' guitar solos, (this album is no exception!), but I'll also mention the new-to-them drummer, Dave Holland, who puts in a nice tight performance here on his debut JP record, and JP’s forever bass player, Ian Hill, who lays down a few really fat (almost funky?) baselines I wasn't expecting (like the intro to "The Rage"). I don't picture myself working this into my normal music rotation, but it's a pretty good occasional listen!
"Living After Midnight" > "Breaking The Law"
PS: The track order doesn't make a lot of sense in a post-vinyl world, but "United" was originally the last track on Side 1 of the record. That's great placement because you're always gonna get up to turn that bullshit off anyway, so you might as well flip the record while you're doing that. Pure genius.
"Red, White, & Blue" is pretty awful too.
Aerosmith
3/5
We need a scientific study of this album. It’s only 35 minute long, but every one of the 9 songs feels like it lasts 5 whole minutes. The math just doesn’t math and I need answers.
If you like guitar rock and/or Steven Tyler's voice, you'll enjoy this one.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
3/5
“We have Dire Straits at home” vibes up and down this record. I like it more than a lot of the synth-pop style New Wave that was destroying radio by 1984, but this… Honky Tonk New Wave? Roadhouse New Wave? Country & Wave-stern? never took over or made a big enough splash to mean much to music history… or did it? Maybe this aided the country music crossover that would eventually give us Sheryl Crow, Shania Twain, and all the bro country in the radio today? I fear I’m reaching for meaning, and also terrified to be right, so I’ll shut up.
I still need some convincing as to why we aren’t letting this one rest in peace back in 1984, but I might be re-listening to this until I get it. Woof. Absolutely not how I thought this review would end when I started writing it.
Highlights:
When Lloyd Cole says “vITimins” in “Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?” Nothing says C ountry like British pronunciation.
All of the twinkly guitar fills that help sew the seeds for Midwest Emo in the 2000s.
The Velvet Underground
3/5
I might not be cool enough for The Velvet Underground and it feels like one of those times where even asking myself that question means that it's probably true. Fortunately, by this recored, Lou, Doug, Sterling, and Moe also seemed to question whether they were cool enough for The Velvet Underground.
Legend has it that Lou Reed pushed to make this softer/folkier/pop record instead of a more direct follow-up to 1968's White Light / White Heat. Choosing to subvert their own sound is the most punk rock think they could do, and that somehow makes this as proto-punk as their other albums. Sonically, there's nothing avant-garde here except for "The Murder Mystery" and, without the context of the preceding albums, there's not a whole lot to discuss about the record. The band all shared lead vocal duties across the album, so that adds some flavor. They must have felt similarly underwhelmed because they just let this record be self titled instead of bothering to name it. Welp, yawn to the next one!
"Candy Says"
"What Goes On"
"Pale Blue Eyes" (a cult classic!)
"The Murder Mystery"
"After Hours"
Scott Walker
1/5
The Wikipedia summary of this album: “Scott 4 is Scott Walker's fifth solo album. It was released in late 1969 under his birth name, Scott Engel, and failed to chart. Reissues have been released under his stage name. It has since received praise as one of Walker's best works.“ ... is proof that absolutely nobody cared about this until they found out the guy was already famous.
He’s no Engelbert Humperdinck, but I’m willing to bet Scott Walker was one of the few singers Morrissey listened to as a child. Hopefully that suggests everything you need to know about Scott's style of misanthropic crooning and I can spare us both the essay length review.
Randy Newman
3/5
Randy Newman has the voice of a disaffected Muppet and, based on this album of 2-3min songs, the attention span of one as well. Some of the songs barely even get going before they’re over, and that makes this feel more like an album of demos… even though many of these songs had already been recorded by Randy and/or other musicians before this record. Some of the songs would feel a little depressing if it wasn’t for (1) that muppet voice, (2) the fact that the song ends before the despair sets in, and (3) the next track starts with a circus rhythm.
It’s so unintentionally whimsical (and sarcastic) that it’s hard to hate. Randy Newman and Tom Waits exist on opposite ends of the same spectrum, and I’m a fan of that spectrum. I’m “as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree”.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
Leonard Cohan may be a brilliant poet and lyricist, but he has the voice of an accomplished actor who’s been given the lead in a musical… but can’t actually sing at all. No matter how hard he tries to smother himself in background singers, he just can’t hide that unflattering truth.
By the time you get through “Jazz Police”, you’ll be either a bonafide fan or a completely broken person. Or maybe I’m just not in on the joke.
“First We Take Manhattan”
“I’m Your Man”
“Tower Of Song”
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Bruce Springsteen is everything electric Bob Dylan could have hoped to be. His signature Telecaster (arguably the best, but least cool, electric guitar ever produced) aids his working-class-every-man aesthetic and effortless cool. He’s a great storyteller, and all of the saxophone and keyboard solos demonstrate a selfless type of songwriting that I can respect - he doesn’t play either, but he knows the songs need them more than they need another guitar solo. My point is: Bruce is great, no matter how much I can’t make myself become a fan.
“Thunder Road”
“Tenth Avenue Freeze Out”
“Born To Run”
“Jungleland”
Van Halen
4/5
Van Halen’s Balance Tour (June 1995) was my first concert ever, so I’ll acknowledge my bias right here at the top. If this album - arguably their second best - is on the list then I have to assume their self-titled 1978 debut is also here somewhere. If not, Mr. Dimery and I need to have some words.
This was David Lee Roth’s last album with the band (we’ll ignore that 2000’s ‘Old Halen’ era album out of respect) and it was a nice return to form for the band who had struggled to recreate the smashing success of Van Halen 1. Commercially, they certainly did it with 1984, but I’m not sure there’s any comparison in a musical sense. It’s got all of the signature screeching guitar work you’d expect from 80’s era Eddie Van Halen (which again, doesn’t match the more mid-range smoldering/smokey tone he used on VH1, but I’ll stop comparing now). And a bunch of very 80’s keyboard work that I never really needed, but further demonstrate how much EVH brought to the table. I should mention that David Lee Roth also contributed a lot, like when he did SO GOOD at jumping in the “Jump” music video. Gosh, what an irreplaceable legend. For me, the best part is hearing EVH experiment with some different guitar tones in the later tracks.
Regardless, 1984 is a fun and pretty lightweight 80’s hair metal album that gave us a solid chunk of any “best of” Van Halen record you’ll ever hear.
“Jump” - Hit
“Panama” - Hit
“Drop Dead Legs” - a perfect example of how VH sounds like the better version of KISS (a rant for another day).
“Hot For Teacher” - Hit
“Girl Gone Bad” - only for the guitar tone, otherwise the song is just a slowed down derivative of “Hot For Teacher”. Would love to hear the HFT lyrics over this instrumentation though!
“House Of Pain” - they put down the hairspray and end the record with 3 minutes of oldschool late-70s metal.
PS: I listened to Van Halen 1 as many times as I listened to 1984 this morning. It’s really not even a comparison. I can’t wait to talk more about that one.
Ella Fitzgerald
3/5
Ella has a beautiful voice and the Gershwin brothers wrote some modern classics that absolutely deserve to be called "standards", but 3.25hrs of homework is an unreasonable amount of homework for a purely recreational project like this. This is “final boss” level music homework and should only be given out as album number 1001. I guess I should be grateful we weren't given Ella's entire Great American Songbook series. Or are the other pieces still coming?
This is a textbook on singing and I can easily see this used as a benchmark by which all other female vocal performances are measured. She also won a 1960 Grammy for "But Not For Me" from this record. This is fantastic work, but I don’t think I’ll be sitting through it again. My rating represents the quality of the work here, but accounts for my disinterest in engaging with it again. It’s the highest 3.99999999 I can give.
Joan Armatrading
4/5
Joan must be one of those “if you know, you know” artists and I’m embarrassed to admit that I had absolutely no idea before today. It’s possible that I’ve heard Joan Armatrading's name in passing, but I can’t say I recall hearing her spoken about in a meaningful way and that feels wrong. She’s been nominated for Grammy Awards in 1980, 1983, and 2007, and that doesn’t feel like enough recognition. She’s also still making music, which is incredible.
I keep having to remind myself that this came out in 1976 because it feels like it could have come out in the late 80s or early 90s. Knowing this was at least 10-15 years earlier, and she just went ahead and kept evolving right on through the 70s, 80s, 90s, until today... it kinda blows my mind. Listening through the rest of her catalog only bolsters my opinion of her work. There's folk, there's funk, there's country, there are all the things (including new wave in the 80s!). I have a sense that Joan quietly influenced so many of the singer-songwriters who came after her and I’d highly recommend hearing this record at least once (and then maybe check out some others)!
“Down To Zero”
“Love And Affection”
“Join The Boys”
"Like Fire"
“Tall In The Saddle”
PS- if anyone knows where I can get a t-shirt with this album cover on it, please let me know. I'm a Large.
3/5
If you're not into prog-rock or experimental jazz, the first three minutes of this record are going to be a real challenge for you. I don't think you'll like anything after that either, but those first three minutes are definitely going to take you "Close To The Edge" of your mental fortitude. The title track is eighteen minutes long and takes up the entire first side of the record, even though it feels like five different songs. Only "And You And I" and "Siberian Khatru" made up the original B side, and then there are four bonus tracks for anyone who still hasn't had enough. Those bonus tracks do contain a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "America", which might be enjoyable for casual listeners.
The instrumental landscapes are expansive and exciting, and the tempo stays pretty high so it really feels like you're on an adventure! However, the vocals start to wear on me after a while. It's like the adventure has a tour guide who keeps squawking facts and anecdotes over the PA while you're trying to look at the scenery and there's nothing you can do about it. I guess it's hard to plead for a "less is more" vocal approach in a genre built on ornate sonic excess.
Prog rock is for nerds! But this is an important listen to appreciate context for the backlash that gave us a lot more low-brow rock and roll (and punk!) in the 70s. Ironically, I hear the roots of post-rock in prog too, but that won't develop until the 90s as a reaction to all the low-brow rock and roll (and punk!) of the late 70s and 80s. A fun ouroboros to explore in a (quite nerdy) future discussion!
The Style Council
3/5
The band name, album cover, and release year lead me to guess that I'd hear some corny synth-pop new wave (prejudging albums by their covers is my favorite morning game). I was pleasantly surprised to get something a little different when I pressed play.
Side one is a pretty straightforward jazz record. Not experimental jazz, it's the kind of basic smooth jazz you learn when your teacher doesn't trust you to play outside of 4/4 yet; the kind of jazz I learned to play when I was 14 years old. Jazz is complicated - you show off too much and you sound pretentious, you don't show off enough and it also sounds pretentious, but in a way that makes you look like a poseur (pretend-tious? let's coin that). On second listen, I could be convinced that "Dropping Bombs On The Whitehouse" shows off enough to prove their jazz chops; I don't care enough to dig deeper on it though.
Side two is a little more dynamic and maybe could have been a separate album. "A Gospel" (Track 8) is a rap song that I never need to hear again, but after that we get some jazz new wave fusion! I was unaware of the concept of jazz new wave, but it seems inevitable that someone would try it. Whether intentional or not, this record does capture that plastic soul quality of the early Bowie new wave recordings. I do feel like these guys were genuinely trying and didn't mean to leave it so soulless.
This was a side project from Paul Weller (of The Jam) and Mick Talbot. I previously reviewed one The Jam album and was thoroughly unconvinced that it was doing anything new/different/exciting; I guess I can't say the same about this record. I still just can't get over all the pretense here. Even dropping the "The" and calling the band "Style Council" might have done loads to lighten things up, but I get the feeling that's not what they were going for. Wherever I land on my rating, know that it got a full star removed for "A Gospel". If I owned a physical copy, I might intentionally scratch it in a way to make that track forever unplayable.
Aerosmith
3/5
I haven't reviewed any of the 7 Beatles albums, 6 Rolling Stones albums, 5 Led Zeppelin albums, or 4 Pink Floyd albums on this list, but this is my 2nd Aerosmith album in less than a month. As someone who lived through Aerosmith's resurgence in the wake of the movie Armageddon, I've had enough Aerosmith. And I swear to god if I get a Bon Jovi album next...
Even casual Aerosmith fans will already know 1/2 of this album and the other half sounds essentially the same and will go down just as smooth. Aerosmith is basically the original version of Buckcherry - remember Buckcherry? It's just kinda raunchy hard rock party music and I really can't think of anything else to say about it.
Aerosmith hits heard here:
"Love In An Elevator"
"Janie's Got A Gun"
"What It Takes"
Billy Joel
3/5
This was a huge record for Billy Joel and, by extension, for rock & roll history. At least 5 of the 9 songs here (see below) are Billy Joel classics you're guaranteed to hear on any greatest hits album ever made (or on easy listening radio on any given day). I totally appreciate the craftsmanship here but it's not my thing. I passively hear these songs so often, and might even sing along sometimes, but that makes it hard to CHOOSE to listen to this record, ya know? We don't have to be strangers, but I don't think we're gonna be friends.
Hit List:
"Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)"
"Just The Way You Are"
"Vienna"
"Only The Good Die Young"
"She's Always A Woman"
Taylor Swift
4/5
As far as essential pop albums go, this probably should be near the top of the list. I know people will make up their minds about this based on their opinions of Taylor Swift, and that’s a disservice either way. Whatever you come into this album expecting is probably what you’ll find.
The album title is a reference to Taylor’s birth year, but also the musical era she was taking inspiration from. 80s music was having a moment in the 2010s, kickstarted in part by the Vaporwave heavy soundtrack to the movie Drive (2011). The opening track of 1989, “Welcome To New York” is heavy with vaporwave style synth and sets that 80s tone for the album. In fact, there are a lot of keyboard forward tracks here, which is a striking departure for an artist who had previously been known for writing her music on guitar.
This album relaunched Taylor as a pop artist. It’s pretty close to being a “no skip” album, but not because I think all the songs are bangers. Instead, I think they’re mostly perfectly fine pop songs (“All You Had To Do Way Stay” stood out as a track that I could live without). I had to listen back to the non-singles a few times just to remind myself what they sounded like. This is a very good album, and I can’t fault anyone who says it’s their favorite TS record. I’m gonna hold back my rating a little bit as I think Reputation may actually represent Taylor’s peak career-to-date pop songwriting (even if it’s more hit-or-miss).