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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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”.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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?

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.