On one hand, this is a blessed album, overflowing with ideas and ambition and beauty. The production style influenced almost every rock band I love today. On the other hand, the ceiling on how much I could like the style of music Brian Wilson made is like a 3/5. Let's split the difference. Also, "A Mouthful of Sores" has permanently tarnished my ability to not giggle when I listen to the Beach Boys. IYKYK.

I mean, it's Abbey Road. Every song is perfect*. The medley might be the pinnacle of their entire output (I still get chills when "Golden Slumber" gives way to "Carry That Weight") I'm so glad they stuck it out for "one last album" despite the imminent fracturing, and clearly** had so much fun doing it. What a gift this album was. Even the two silly songs are fun and well produced. And the medley... just 16 minutes exploding with creativity and musicianship and killer riffs and special moments for each member individually and as a foursome. What else is there to say? Amongst the most five-star albums to ever get five stars. *two silly songs probably excepted **from the various documentaries and outtakes you can hear if you want to do a deep dive

I'm not eager for this style of music to be rediscovered and reconsidered, but I'm not as bitter or cynical about it as I was in my early 90s teens. The singles are undeniable, and lyrically this is grittier and riskier than most of the other 80s hair metal debris still casually lying around. I struggled to find much to enjoy outside of those singles, but I get how someone who played this tape over and over and over and over again would find their way into its nooks and crannies.

I really wanted to love this, and have tried many, many times in the past. I admire the musicianship, but it just leaves me cold. It's an example of a very good thing that's not for me.

I've somehow never given much thought to Tears For Fears outside of their singles. This was a pretty solid album front to back (though the ballads left me flat). The Genesis albums from this era have a certain hold on my imagination and I imagine if i had come to this closer to real time, it would have been formative. But will I ever listen to it again? [looks around; whispers] Probably not…

The musicianship is clear, but at some point one track was just floating into the next with no discernable unique qualities, and I think that's where jazz lives for me: Love and admire it, but there are no songs I jump up for, no songs that get stuck in my head, no songs I can't wait to revisit. The masterpieces transcend that; this wasn't one of them.

I've been listening to this since it was released in '96, and revisiting it was a joy. This kind of grunge-meets-trip-hop-meets-elliott-smith is right up my alley and this one in particular hit me at a perfect moment as I was increasingly living in the tension of inner turmoil counter-balanced with a growing sense of wonder about the world. All the melancholy and minor key dirgeness balanced with exceptionally inventive arrangements and production are still to this day pretty dang close to perfect. The Eels have gone on to have a pretty legendary run of albums, but this one will always have my heart, even though more interesting albums are ahead. That said, is this one of the 1001 albums you must hear before you die? Probably not. But I like it better than every "classic" album this list has thrown at me so far.

Thoughts I had while listening to this: "Finally, the perfect soundtrack for a lazy Sunday" "Wasn't this featured on 'NOW That's What I Call Music 32'?" "That riff just kind of tunnels its way into your brain, doesn't it?" I don't know, man. I want to be the kind of music lover that can appreciate this. I was so excited to check out an album I'd literally never heard of before that enough critics thought worthy of a list (even one as big as 1,001 albums.) But I didn't appreciate this on any level. I'm guessing it's hugely influential and there are artists I adore who were completely turned on by this. I can imagine this being a foundational record for Aphex Twin, Autechre, Whitney Houston. Oh, not Whitney Houston. Who am I thinking of? (That being said, I listened to '20 Jazz Funk Greats' and there was some actually great stuff on there.)

There's something about that riff on "Sunshine of Your Love" that makes me want to sink way down into my floor, write shitty poetry and let the whole thing take me over. It occurs to me that I'm not nearly high enough to properly enjoy this*. What to make of this one? Should an album be held captive by the heights of one song and the impossibility of sustaining that height**? Are the lows enough to knock a star off even if they're all well and good and I just don't appreciate psychedelia (and dumb British stuff like "Mother's Lament") all that much? Should I rate an album five stars because it's clearly a five-star album and therefore it deserves its flowers, or is this project personal enough that I ought to just stick to my gut and give it four stars? I did just give an Eels album five stars ostensibly for shits and giggles, and this is certainly more deserving of that rating. But, I am nothing if not inconsistent about my music tastes. What am I rambling on about now? Maybe I *am* high enough to properly enjoy this***? * I'm not high at all, just for clarification. ** Though Jimi did it three times right around now. *** Still not high at all.

It doesn't elevate the form like "Is This It?", "Turn On the Bright Lights" or "Fever to Tell," but it's holding up well and it did what it set out to do as well as one could, no?

Another perfectly fine album that seems like an odd inclusion in this list. Since there are better Goldfrapp albums, does that mean you need to hear MULTIPLE Goldfrapp albums before you die? That's hard to co-sign. Anyway, three stars.

Undeniable, even though it's not really for me.

Sometimes I read a review prior to listening to an album in a genre I don’t connect with in order to have some context for what makes it great. In the case of Shadowland, it was Mark Deming’s review from allmusic.com. He painted a picture of a masterpiece of country music and, since all I really knew of KD Lang was “constant craving,” I dove in expecting the water to be warm. I love many albums that fit the alt-country tag, and I grew up embedded in a town with abundant access to concerts featuring some of the genre’s most famous acts. And I can spot the magic in a Patsy Cline song and a Hank Williams album one, and some modern country like Sturgill Simpson or Kacey Musgrave has made it past my moat and taken up residence in a year-end list. All this is to say, I *want* to love this. And I even feel bad *not* loving it. But this genre just isn’t for me, despite kind of sort of seeing what Mr. Deming was going on about.

Not much to say here. The first bona fide masterpiece of this project for me and the first that lives somewhere in my own top 100/head canon shortlist. Just 11 straight shots of pure adrenaline to the system. Every time I revisit it, it gets better, and that's like 25 years of revisiting at this point.

Sure.

On one hand, this is a blessed album, overflowing with ideas and ambition and beauty. The production style influenced almost every rock band I love today. On the other hand, the ceiling on how much I could like the style of music Brian Wilson made is like a 3/5. Let's split the difference. Also, "A Mouthful of Sores" has permanently tarnished my ability to not giggle when I listen to the Beach Boys. IYKYK.

This used to be pure joy. Now it’s something else. The music is still the music. What’s always been infectious and transcendent is still infectious and transcendent. But now there’s other emotions too. Complicated, confusing, and ultimately icky emotions. The joy is compromised. And if this record is designed for peak fun as its sole reward, what’s left in its wake?

Lovely voice, some interesting arrangements, and a whole lot of songs that were appropriated, which tarnishes my ability to just enjoy the darn thing.

This one is special. It hits all of my buttons. It makes me want to go back and knock my other 5-star albums down a star. After all these years I'm still being hooked by new grooves or hearing a new lick. (By the way, I peeked at what's ahead and since it won't be coming up, let me here suggest "On the Corner" as required listening if you were into this one.)

I kind of loathe U2 most of the time, though this is one of the two U2 albums I ever spent my precious Columbia House/BMG pennies on (the other being its follow-up, Zooropa, which I adore; an opinion that I've discovered is out of step with the U2 core fanbase.) I'm fairly certain I owned this on cassette and then re-purchased a used copy of the CD later on. So, like all albums from about 91-94, there's a ton of nostalgia here since these songs made up at least some of my coming-of-age soundtrack, and "Mysterious Ways" was in the alternative MTV rotation by the time "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came to obliterate my small-town-Iowa worldview and forever change me. Anyway, the first half of this album (plus "Mysterious Ways") is big, anthemic rock at its absolute finest. Banger after banger after banger. The second half (minus "Mysterious Ways") is meandering and overproduced. It's the same production that takes the songs in the first half into the stratosphere, but since the melodies aren't strong, the heavy handedness becomes both meat and potatoes. I've often wondered what a Rick-Rubin-Wildflowers-era version of U2 would have sounded like. "Tryin' to throw your arms…" and "Ultra Violet" especially feel like they would have benefitted from taking the foot off of the arena-rock/KROQ-hit gas. But also, "Mysterious Ways" is on here. So, four stars I guess?

The sharp exit from the transcendent, world altering title track into the acoustic guitar at the beginning of "Can You Get to That" is always so jarring; I want like 34 more seconds of silence or atmosphere. But since it's P-Funk, it more or less feels at home with their entire fun-but-scattered-and-inconsistent catalog. Still, there's nothing that could have followed the opening title track that would have felt worthy of its wake. Eddie Hazel made me feel the things all the elder statesmen said guitar music could make you feel. The rest of the album ranges from decent to pretty good, but "Maggot Brain" is a minor miracle.

There's a whole rang of music from this time period that I just kind of roll my eyes at and can't really meet on its own merits -- this, Bobby McFerrin, "Kokomo." The whole thing feels inseparable from Chevy Chase mugging for the camera in the 'Al' video. That said, it's hard to hate on this album. Everything is fun and poppy, and there's clever Simon-y wordplay on most songs. Mbaqanga music is fun. But Graceland is so old fashioned, and the lyrics so rarely fit the music in any meaningful way, that it feels like Paul Simon wrote some catchy pop melodies and pasted a layer of mbaqanga music on top of it. I think I can understand why this all felt dynamic and new in 1986, and I guess pop artists get to be inspired by stuff (it seems like he at least tried to create some level of equity for the musicians he brought in to help him create this) so I shouldn't just cynically yell 'Appropriation!' like someone yelling 'Bomb!' on an airplane, but also it doesn't really inspire me to go any deeper into its influences, which … ideally it would? Also, why is this called Graceland?

Another album that hit at the right time in my life to love it well beyond its merit. "Vow," "Stupid Girl," and "Queer" are still in my personal heavy rotation. "Milk" is on a shortlist of my very favorite songs. It was fun revisiting this as a whole, though a lot of this sounds the same. At the time bringing all of these elements together at once felt groundbreaking for mainstream modern rock radio; it was as vibrant as anything in the post-Cobain era. It was fun revisiting this in whole. Bumping it up a star for its personal meaning to me.

Im a fan of reggae and many of its offshoots. And also this sucked.

One of those albums that demands you listen on good headphones as loudly as you're willing to go. You want the wall of sound to overwhelm and the gorgeous, haunting melodies to emerge and worm their way into you. I'm completely swept up by shoegaze and My Bloody Valentine is the best of the genre. I came to My Bloody Valentine very late in life -- after even this 2013 album was released -- writing them off as some kind of horror rock band that I had no interest in, so I didn't get to participate in the roller coaster of emotions that accompanied its sudden and startling release 22 years after it was begun after so many false promises and waylaid hopes. I've often wondered out loud if my whole life trajectory would have been changed by discovering Loveless in real time. Its hold on me is so complete that I imagine my younger self wandering through my hometown desperately searching for one likeminded fan of music to lay on a floor with and let the unstable tuning of the tremolo arm wash over us. The intimacy of the soft, sweet mix of Kevin and Belinda's voices buried so deep in the mix that they make you lean all the way in demand (in my mind's eye) to be pictured like the light of an early 90s indie movie projected through dusty air onto the screen of a worn-down theater that hasn't yet been scooped up by AMC. Their music lends itself to romanticizing a soundtrack to my teenage emotional turmoil, falling in love every other week, desperately wanting out of the house, longing for a place in the world that I can just be myself and not be shoved into lockers for it. mbv isn't quite the monument that Loveless is, so I don't return to it quite as often. It's essentially broken into three distinct sections. Tracks 1-3 could fit onto Loveless seamlessly. Tracks 4-6 feel like a step into something new, possibly what a proper follow-up to Loveless would have felt like in the early 90s. Tracks 7-9 are stark departures with pummeling percussion only really hinted before now on the final track of Loveless, though there it was nearly a proper dance track. Those last three tracks by nature can't sink into your psyche quite the same way and so it's taken many more listens to find their melodic heart, especially buried in "Wonder 2." I don't know that I actually like the last three tracks so much as I feel obligated to like them, though on the right day I can find them invigorating.

Never heard his before. Loved it.

An exquisite and powerful album with an iconic album cover to boot (not the one pictured here for some reason.)

There are some really stunning moments ("Golgotha" being my favorite) and while I don't know how this would ever fit into a regular rotation of music for me, I sincerely appreciated listening to it. Also, I didn't know the connection between this album and Paul Simon's Graceland. Hearing them so close to each other thanks to this project did admittedly make me appreciate Graceland a little more in hindsight, or at least appreciate Paul Simon championing them.

I have to admit that I've never once listened to a non-Toy Story Randy Newman song. It's very, very hard to hear this on its own terms and not hear some version of "You've Got a Friend In Me" on every track and I gave up trying about 20 seconds into "Every Man a King."

Boy, they sure can write an anthem, can't they? There are moments on this album where I think, "Is this one of the greatest albums ever made?" But then something else from the era will follow it -- Daydream Nation & Sign O' the Times are the same year; Surfer Rosa is a year away -- and I'll remember that U2 just doesn't turn me on or have its way with my soul. Alas.

What am I missing? This is so boring. These guys are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is a hugely popular album and I just don’t get it at all. It doesn't even have the decency to be cheesy and fun. (Also, second album with a Chevy Chase connection so far!)

Not the kind of music I'd pull up regularly but I enjoyed hearing this. Lots of energy; would clearly have been dynamite to experience live. I got a little burnt out on it halfway through though.

I've never really connected with Johnny Cash, though I've heard this a bunch of times and admire it a great deal. The trappings of the setting and his banter are more compelling to me than the actual music, but that's no fault of Mr. Cash.

Even though I haven't spent a ton of time with this album, I felt like I knew every song by heart and every riff brought with it a flood of sense memories. When I first listened to Black Sabbath in earnest, the music felt so much less dangerous than the stuff happening in New York in the 70s that I didn't understand how they had a reputation as the church's Public Enemy No. 1. Ozzy's public image in the 90s and 00s didn't help anything. It all seemed like a parody of itself. A few years ago I listened to Master of Reality in earnest for the first time (possibly for the first time period) and it was just a right-place/right-time situation where everything clicked and I couldn't get enough. I'd spent so much time tracing the lineage of my favorite 90s bands through Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Roger Waters, and/or Page & Plant that I never fully appreciated how much more influential Black Sabbath were on some of the giants. Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots and the Smashing Pumpkins all owe a far greater debt here than to whatever was happening at CBGB's. Paranoid is one that deserves more of my attention. Aside from the ubiquitous War Pigs/Iron Man/Paranoid triumvirate, "Planet Caravan" caught me off guard in the best way, "Jack the Stripper" was a whole lot of headbangin' fun, and the sniveling vocals wrapping themselves around the monster riff on "Electric Funeral" went a long way to explaining how these guys could put the fear of lucifer into an impressionable young fundamentalist. Reserving a star because Master of Reality is ahead and Vol. 4 has, to my ears, so much more going on songwriting-wise. But this is a stone-cold classic.

There's a lot going on here. I made it halfway through and needed a break and a glass of water. Ministry freaked me out as a kid and they still freak me out a little now. That said, there’s interesting stuff here. Is it essential? Meh.

I mean, it's Abbey Road. Every song is perfect*. The medley might be the pinnacle of their entire output (I still get chills when "Golden Slumber" gives way to "Carry That Weight") I'm so glad they stuck it out for "one last album" despite the imminent fracturing, and clearly** had so much fun doing it. What a gift this album was. Even the two silly songs are fun and well produced. And the medley... just 16 minutes exploding with creativity and musicianship and killer riffs and special moments for each member individually and as a foursome. What else is there to say? Amongst the most five-star albums to ever get five stars. *two silly songs probably excepted **from the various documentaries and outtakes you can hear if you want to do a deep dive

Pink Flag came out the same year as Nevermind the Bollocks and The Clash's first album, so it's disappointing to me that this didn't make as big of an impact as those two records, though I suppose not surprising. Anyhoo, Pink Flag rocks. (Wire was/is still putting out quality records as recently as 2020 and have a massive back catalog filled with little treasures, which is certainly preferable to the beautiful corpse of the Sex Pistols.)

🤷🏻 It felt like this one never knew what it wanted to be. I can appreciate genre hopping, and not every band needs to pick one lane, but I just never got my head around this album, nevermind finding it essential.

I want to like this more than I do. "The Weight" is timeless though.

I've tried many times with Kelela. Seems like the kind of music I'd love. But I just don't connect with it. The production is great though.

Just… no. (Giving this two stars cause if I give it one star, I have to look at the cover every time I click on my summary page.)

"The Elvis Presley of French Pop." Je n'aime pas du tout ça. Le jeu trop emphatique et le manque total de charme ne sont pas mis en valeur par la mauvaise qualité de la production. Le public est enthousiaste, alors peut-être que je passe à côté de quelque chose à cause de la traduction (ou plutôt de l'absence de traduction).

Ended up enjoying this, especially “Lust for Love” and “this town. But mostly it just made me want to reach for those first couple B-52s masterpieces, and of course the immortal “Heaven is a Place on Earth.”

There are moments during "Djed" where I remind myself that someone wrote and recorded this, because it feels like music that has just always existed. There are other moments where I think, "Why did they choose this here?" only to seconds later be entirely captivated and swept away by that same choice. It's a song/composition/saga that rewards multiple listens, and it's so packed full of good stuff that multiple listens is not a chore, despite its running time. I wish that the other 20 minutes on this record matched it, but they don't, though they're all very listenable. I peeked and saw that this is the only Tortoise album on the list. That's a shame because the next one, TNT, is just as great, and more consistent start to finish.

I gave her other album on this list a very low grade. Not this one. This one is a banger. Also, I almost certainly knew "Son of a Preacher Man" prior to Pulp Fiction, but its moment in that film, one of my ten favorites since the day I saw it, has become so etched in my memory that I can no longer separate Mia from Dusty.

Is this a 3-star album or a 4-star album? I'm so torn. It's obviously a 3½ star album, but since that's not allowed, do I round up or down? Let's break it down. 1. This is almost wholesale ripping off Bends-era Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, The Verve, and a host of other bands. 2. On the other hand, they do a pretty good impression, and Chris Martin is vulnerable enough and the guitars shimmer enough that it all stands on its own just fine. 3. Their gift for crafting earworms is impressive, and will remain so on all their subsequent albums, even as they start mostly just imitating themselves. 4. I spent *so* many nights in the fall of 2000 with this album on in the background. Every dorm room I landed in for like four months had it in heavy rotation. That wasn't a bad thing at all. It's a cozy album and has a consistent vibe. 5. I have almost all of these songs on the playlist I shuffle most frequently ("My Happy Place",) and I very rarely skip them when they come up. 6. As a result of 4 & 5, I have listened to this album hundreds of times, way more than the three albums I currently have at 5 stars on my summary page (46 albums in; it's still early days.) Screw it, 4 stars.

Really tried with this one because Martyn is an influence on The Verve apparently, and The Verve are one of my heart-bands. But this just isn't for me.

Some meaningful part of my heart is taken by Radiohead's music, something that has been true since hearing "My Iron Lung" on a CMJ New Music Monthly sampler CD in early '95; a sentiment only strengthened by OK Computer, which is god-tier, and Kid A, which turned my music tastes upside down. Where to start with In Rainbows…  "15 Step" signaled that they once again had redefined their music. "Bodysnatchers" was a thunderbolt of crunchy guitars. "Nude" continues to have little touches I discover each listen, and is one of the best showcases for how their music can be both melancholy and hopeful, moody and euphoric. "Weird Fishes," the standout track on the album, has inspired countless YouTube reaction videos of people having their minds blown. "All I Need" has that longing, plaintive quality combined with so many thoughtful little musical touches. The whole record rewards repeat listens like very few other records do. Each time I go back I find something new to love. I haven't even gotten to "Reckoner" or "Videotape," each worthy of dissertations. Each member of the band has fingerprints all over every song. No note is unexamined. No stretch of music isn't meticulously considered and iterated on. For a very long time OK Computer and Kid A sat in my top 5 and I expected no album would come close to touching them. 18 years later, I listen to In Rainbows far more often than OK Computer, and have come to cherish it. It's a joy. It's vulnerable and filled with light. It's perfect in every way. And it's currently #4 on my all-time favorite albums list, a list I admittedly revise somewhat frequently, but its been within the top 5 for many years now, while OK Computer looks in from #6. It's becoming more and more unlikely we'll ever get another mammoth Radiohead record. Who know if we'll get a tenth album, period. But In Rainbows showed me that a band 15 years into their run could once again reinvent themselves and deliver something seminal. So I sit hopeful that there's more to come. 5 stars. 6 stars. 11 billion stars. (If you ever want to fully explore In Rainbows, there is a podcast called Dissect that did an incredible unpacking of each track a couple years ago. Highly recommended.)

The burst of creativity from 1972's Music of My Mind to 1976's Songs in the Key of Life is, for my money, the greatest run of music there is. Five years, five albums, five masterpieces. You can have your Beatles and Dylan runs. Give me Stevie. In fact, inject it straight into my veins. It's dealer's choice whether Innervisions or SITKOL is the pinnacle of that period. For me it's the latter, but just by a hair. Innervisions is 44 minutes of tightly-woven songs that rip. The ballads move. The funky jams jam funkily. More than once a song does that thing where they become a whole different song halfway through, and both sides are revelatory (I initially cringed at the “skit” (in modern terms) in the middle of “Living for the City,” but now think it’s an incredible flourish.) And there are multiple songs that do that thing that Stevie is the best at -- taking a song and letting it climb higher and higher and higher until it bursts into a new octave, a new key, a new stratosphere, a rush of beauty. "Golden Lady", "Jesus Children of America", "Living for the City", and "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing” all give me chills. Sometimes they feel like there are 2 or 3 distinct vocalists at the helm, but it's all Stevie. From his deep growl to his pre-Michael Jackson "heeeee"s and James Brown “Ow”s, he has an uncanny sense of when a song needs just a little something extra to send it over the edge (dig the way the album ends with growl-Stevie singing underneath heavenly-Stevie.) I love the way he does from the plaintive softness of “Visions” to the urgency of “Living …” to the silky smooth Bruno Mars-esque “Higher Ground” to the powerhouse, knock-em-dead performance on “All in Love is Fair,” an earned earnestness that too many American idol-y folks aim for without any conviction. This album embodies beauty to me. And did I mention how *fun* it is? All the stars.

There are so many sides to Beck in the first ten years — Mellow Gold to One Foot in the Grave to Odelay to Mutations to Midnite Vultures is a crazy melting pot — but I remember still being pretty caught off guard by Sea Change, an autumnal breakup album that rarely has a groove to ride or cares to bring us out of the muck. It's a whole album of “Nobody’s Fault but my Own,” which I don't remember clamoring for. But there's layers here — Nick Drake doing David Bowie or visa versa, with a little Patsy Cline sprinkled in — and it's a rewarding listen, elevated by Nigel Godrich's gorgeous production. Catch it in the right mood on a long stretch of starlit country highway and it may leave a lasting impression. It gets a little long in the tooth by the end — shave off two tracks and maybe I would have returned to it more over the years — and I always feel compelled to like it more than I do because of the critical love it usually gets. Another 3.5 star album that I have to round up or down. It's lovely, and “Lost Cause” is maybe my favorite song he’s made, and I haven't done myself any favors rounding up on that eels record and Coldplay's debut. Still, I just so rarely come back to it. I guess that's a good thing?

I haven't listened to Wild Beasts in at least a decade. As this album began I thought, “This is groovy. Why don’t I listen to this more?” And then Hayden Thorpe started singing…

461 Ocean Boulevard has good examples of what makes Clapton important -- the inspired guitar work, the bluesy, laid back ramblers, the maudlin ballads that are *just* earnest enough to be affecting -- but the some of it is just... kind of fine? Also, "I Shot the Sheriff" suffers from that same thing I didn't like about Paul Simon's Graceland. It hits all the beats of a Wailers song, but it's missing the essential quality that makes Bob Marley special. Maybe I'm just grumpy about the person he's become as he's aged, but I have never fully understood the hype, and spending another hour with him didn't move the needle for me. He's got the goods, but not enough soul to elevate it.

Something that always gets me about the funk and soul music coming out of this era is how *free* it feels. It's loose but everyone feels fully engaged and each instrument and note *matters*. Curtis, like Stevie Wonder and Al Green and all the rest, channels his vocals from some deep place that sounds like they're all being made up for the very first time but that every throwaway change of energy or volume or extra oomph is thoughtfully considered, like he's less performing than letting it erupt from some visceral place in his psyche. If this is rehearsed to the point of perfection, no one is giving less than 100%. It's really magical. And even with all of those many, many instruments and elements going on, the arrangements and mixing are perfect -- drawing your attention right where it needs to be, and hiding little surprises and fills deep in the mix for discovery upon repeat listens. Completely unrelated: is this the only movie soundtrack I've listened to dozens of times without ever bothering to actually see the movie it's soundtracking? I wonder how would my appreciation of it change if I understood where it was situated.

I had never encountered this before, which was exciting, but I think I wanted to like it more than I did.

Maybe the finest album by anyone from Wu-Tang. Raekwon and Ghostface Killlah are a serendipitous match, and RZA's productions never sounded better. If you wanted to argue that this is the best rap album of the 90s, I wouldn't throw up much of a fuss. I came to this in college, when people still pored over one album for months unpacking the lyrics and learning the nooks and crannies of an album, and this one more than most rewarded that time. There's a depth to the lyrics. It has the bravado and violence that were hallmarks of all of the gangster rap albums from this era, but Raekwon and Ghostface use that posturing to display a real vulnerability about what that life was like. And, importantly, it's a really fun listen. Raekwon's staccato delivery and multiple-rhymes-within-a-bar certainly influenced all of my favorite rappers (MF Doom, Andre 3000, Kendrick, etc.) This is still in heavy rotation for me.

As an indulgence for a legendary rock band and their fans, I don't begrudge it. Not sure the symphony adds any new layer to any song, or situates anything in a new light, and the mixing is pretty muddy. But mostly I just can't fathom how anyone could vote for this being one of the 1001 albums one must hear in their lifetime, let alone enough voters to land this on the list. In that spirit, here are 50+ albums from the 90s / early 00s that aren't included on this list, in no particular order: Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" The Breeder's "Last Splash" Bjork's "Homogenic" and "Post" Outkast's "Aquemini" and "ATLiens" Fiona Apple's "The Idler Wheel …" and "When the Pawn …" Queens of the Stone Age's "Songs for the Deaf" Every single Tom Petty album except his debut Every Morphine album (less surprising, but still) A Tribe Called Quest's "Midnight Marauders" Janet Jackson's "The Velvet Rope" Robyn's self-titled or "Body Talk" Eric B & Rakim's "Paid in Full" and "Follow the Leader" J Dilla's "Donuts" The Tragically Hip’s “Fully Completely” Daft Punk’s “Discovery” Every Tool album Massive Attack’s “Mezzanine” Deftones’ “White Pony” The Cranberries’ “No Need to Argue” Cypress Hill's "Black Sunday" Every Nine Inch Nails album except "The Downward Spiral" Sonic Youth's "Washing Machine" Every Yo La Tengo album Every Low album The Roots' "Things Fall Apart" Missy Elliott's "Miss E… So Addictive" Clipse's "Lord WIllin'" Mclusky's "Mclusky Do Dallas" Every Spoon album Gang Starr's "Hard to Earn" EVERY MF DOOM ALBUM including "Madvillainy" Every Lil' Wayne album Broken Social Scene's "You Forgot It In People" Interpol's "Turn on the Bright Lights" PJ Harvey's "To Bring You My Love" Nick Cave's "No More Shall We Part" Every Mos Def album, every Talib Kweli album, and the Black Star album (featuring Mos Def & Talib Kweli) Jay-Z's "Reasonable Doubt" Mobb Deep's "The Infamous" Every Slowdive album Every Death Cab album and the Postal Service album Blur's "13" Tupac's "All Eyez on Me" Big Daddy Kane's "Long Live the Kane" Every Pearl Jam album except "Ten" Red Hot Chili Peppers' "By the Way" Weezer's self-titled debut Weezer's "Pinkerton" You get the point.

Flawless is a good word for this album, in the sense that every note and word feels polished and produced to go right the pleasure spot of white people who like hip hop. Whether that’s the chicken or the egg is up for debate, but everything down to the album’s cover feels polished and lab-tested to be Common’s big comeback album with critics and fans. Which isn’t to say it’s bad. Kanye’s production feels rehashed from his big hits at the time, but they were hits for a reason. And Common is an excellent rapper, even if I find this a little toothless compared to “Resurrection” or “Like Water for Chocolate.” I wanted “Be” to be legendary, but it’s just kind of pleasant and forgettable (though that live recording of "The Food" from the Chapelle Show felt electric when we all watched it for the first time, and I like that they included it here instead of recreating it in the studio.) But all of this is a shame because of these three things: 1) Common felt for a moment like the epitome of socially conscious rap, the promised one after so many years of gangster rap hitting the zeitgeist which left little room for your Tribes Called Quest or Souls De La. 2) I saw Common live around this time and he was pure fire. He was alone on a stage and it felt like watching lightning. 3) There’s a moment on Jeen Yuhs where Kanye and Most Def freestyle what would become “Two Words,” and it’s also fire. In theory, Kanye linking up with all these guys should have been legendary.

Not my favorite White Stripes album, but its the one that broke them so feels right that it's here. This seemed so invigorating when it first released. Wrapping Iggy Pop in blues music is right smack in my wheelhouse, beefed up by the rad crunch Jack gets out of his guitar and Meg's loose but fully embodied drums. (It also gave me the gift of seeking out their back catalog and finding "Little Bird" which has a complete hold on a handful of my brain cells for nigh on 25 years.) Of course when I listen to it now it just makes me want to get to Elephant. White Blood Cells is good, but it's about to get So. Much. Better.

I'm mostly familiar with Emmylou Harris from the 90s and on, which generally is when she shifted away from country music. My understanding is that she was a fairly progressive country artist before that, but maybe that happened after her debut. Anyway, I just don't know how to appreciate this music, though it seems like another very good version of something that's not for me.

In "Meet Me in the Bathroom," the oral history of early 00s rock music in New York, Tim Goldsworthy describes American indie music in the mid and late 90s as having completely lost its sexiness, and accuses it of being "sorry-I-have-a-penis" kind of indie rock. Is Elliott Smith the epitome of that or the antithesis? Delicate, vulnerable, almost decaying at its seams, and yet so fully embodied and beautiful that nearly every sexy artist of indie rock in the late 00s name-checks it as a main influence (Apple music's profile featuers Billie Eilish, Julien Baker, slowthai, Mac Miller, Arlo Parks, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus. Sheesh.) He's somehow the Prince of indie rock. I've heard him described as a master of chord progressions, and that strikes me as his superpower. All that intimacy has room to breathe because his guitar is such an extension of himself. There's a lot of Beatles here; "Cupid's Trick" feels like it could have landed somewhere on the White Album and "Say Yes" might as well be a cover song. But the layer of intimacy is what makes sets this apart as singular. I've listened to these simple songs hundreds of times and they've never failed to cast a spell. It's timeless and essential. If it hasn't worked its magic on you yet, stick with it, please. I have two and only two complaints: One, where "Pictures of Me" sits in the tracklist is very jarring and breaks the hypnosis. I may be unknowingly treading on sacred ground, but I wish it would have been left out. Two, "Say Yes" ends in a very unsatisfying place. It demands another song after. You can loop back to the beginning or go on to XO, but that's when I just want to sit in quiet and process Either/Or, I feel unsettled. If this is a 4½ star album, are those two complaints enough to round down instead of up? Tonight I'm feeling generous and want to add another 5 stars to its average. I'll justify it by listening to "Angeles" again.

"Do you like Ornette Coleman?" I do! "Do you like John Zorn?" Mostly! Especially when he's going slow and steady! "Do you want to hear John Zorn play Ornette Coleman songs, only sped up and with a cacophony of instruments playing random notes?"

Remember when I wrote that Stevie made five masterpieces in five years? Masterpiece #2. (Also, not for nothing, but this came out just *seven months* after "Music of My Mind.")

I've never made it through an entire ELO album. I hear "Mr. Blue Sky" and think I would be able to find my way in, but something about his voice or the sheen or just the lack of any depth at all grates on me quickly.

Have you seen the "History of the Eagles" documentary? Highly recommended. Anyway, it's the f&#$ing Eagles. I don't know. They're not very good, but also, they're awesome?

I first discovered Tito Puente in the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" episode of the Simpsons, and never shall Tito Puente and The Simpsons tear asunder in my mind. That being said, I like this, though probably in smaller doses than an entire album.

A little bit of Louis goes a long way. He is fantastic under a scene in a movie or for a song or two in the background of your local Italian eatery. But I'm not super interested in a whole album of it.

I don't really know Willie Nelson the performer, just Willie Nelson the persona. Obviously this isn't my genre, but I didn't hate this. The songs are perfectly short -- one good idea, not drug out, like a good punk album. I didn't have time to get sick of songs before he was on to his next idea, though they are all cut from the same cloth. I appreciated how lively and present it was. "I Couldn't Believe It Was True" felt like it was recorded in my living room, in a good way. Still, I was ready to move on halfway through, which is only like 15 minutes of music, and I can't imagine pulling it up again. Yet another example of a very good version of a thing that's not for me.

I can't think about this album objectively. At my very lowest in high school, when everything felt too hard to keep going, I have vivid memories of lying on my floor with my yellow Discman and my crappy RCA headphones listening to Urban Hymns and feeling comforted. I have no great insights into why. There's obvious heart-beating-on-the-outside-of-your-body stuff like "The Drugs Don't Work" and "Sonnet." There's go-outside-and-embrace-life stuff like "Bitter Sweet Symphony" and "Lucky Man." But the one I really get lost in is the swirling grooves of "Catching the Butterfly," a song that sweeps me away every time. 28 years later, I still find it overwhelmingly beautiful.

I lowkey hate this album, but also every now and then I hear it and think it’s a work of genius.

Because this still sounds like a bomb going off, I can’t imagine what it was like to discover this in 1988. It does sound precisely like 1988 hip hop, but somehow it also feels like it exists outside of time. Nearly every impactful rapper from the last 35+ years has a lineage back to Chuck D, and Flava Flav remains the all-time greatest hype man.

I was grumpy when this showed up because there are no less than *six* Smiths/Morrissey albums on this list, and that feels like overkill. Then "Alsatian Cousin" kicked in and it goes so hard that I just buckled in for one more double decker bus collision. The highs on this one are up there with the very best Morrissey songs. The aforementioned "Alsatian," the towering "Every Day is Like Sunday," the Cure-esque guitars of "Suedehead," and the lyrical hatchet of "Margaret on the Guillotine." Certainly one of the very best post-band-breakup albums.

My opinion of this swung wildly throughout the day. I don’t remember hearing these guys before now. It was a little irritating getting started, but by "Motorcade” and "The Light Pours Out of Me,” I wanted to give it another shot. The Buzzcocks lineage isn’t obvious. It sounds way more Bowie meets Roxy Music. I think I like it, maybe a lot? I’ll revisit it soon.

Not today, thanks.

I’ve always been a little on the fence about this album. It doesn’t totally work for me, but when it hits, it hits big. “Deceptacon” is one of my go-to “dance in the kitchen like no one is watching” songs, and “Eau D’ Bedroom Dancing” is on my shortlist of unused songs that have not yet but will one day (mark my words) soundtrack a killer scene in some prestige TV show. The lyrics throughout the whole album are delightful too. There’s a lot to recommend, but the jangle pop doesn’t work for me on many tracks. Still, Kathleen Hanna is a goddess and four stars would be warranted for “Deceptacon” alone.

My goodness Chris Martin has an ear for huge radio hooks, doesn’t he? If you squint real hard, it almost sounds like Wings with an Abbey-Road-level Paul at the helm. Not a skippable track here. There's nothing groundbreaking -- they're not doing anything U2 or a handful of other bands haven't done before -- but A Rush Of Blood To The Head is more inspiration than imitation in the end. From this point on Coldplay will more or less just try to imitate themselves (to varying degrees of effect,) but they earned their bonafides on this one.

This felt like a deep cut from a genre that has been swallowed up by the paragons that moved in a hundred different directions (Hendrix, Pink Floyd, etc) and the bands that mined every ounce of psychedelia until it was stripped clean of meaning (looking at you, Grateful Dead.) There were moments here or there where I perked up ("Death Sound" chief among them) but mostly it failed to hold my attention. I imagine a completist of the genre -- or maybe someone who grew up with this -- would find more to like here.

I’m so connected to Eno's ambient music that I find myself disoriented with albums like Before And After Science. In theory I understand that Brian Eno was the synth player in Roxy Music, and that he worked with Talking Heads and a host of other singular, genre-busting bands. So, I tried to clear my mind and let go of my pre-conceived notions. The problem is that I’m conditioned to receive anything Eno touched as legendary, and so I find myself trying to fit what I’m hearing into that box. And this one just wasn't clicking for me at any point. I can give it three stars on craft alone, but if I were to give it any more, I’d be doing it to be someone who rates Brian Eno albums four stars. Mostly it made me want to listen to Roxy Music and Talking Heads though, which led to an LCD Soundsystem rabbit trail. So that was fun at least.

Not one of my favorite Smiths albums. Some gems ("Headmaster Ritual," "How Soon is Now" if we're counting it) but more misses than hits. Given how many Morrissey/Smiths albums there are on this list, this feels like an easy one to leave off.

One of my least favorite internet tropes is when people share a medium-hot take that is ostensibly uncontroversial and then add on ‘There, I said it’ as if they've made peace with their god about confessing the white hot rage they've kept locked away for years, morality and social norms be damned. Anyway, Steely Dan sucks. There, I said it.

I read that the British press dubbed these guys the “most important band of their generation” pretty quickly after their debut album (this is their second album, for reference.) It sounds like there’s some historical lineage connecting these guys to people who worked with the Beatles, the Clash, Oasis, etc. That lineage seems to have created a hype train that, to my ears, made critics more forgiving to the flaws. This sounds pretty generic. It’s fine, but it doesn’t sound appreciably different or elevated over a couple dozen other bands from that stretch in the 2000s where New York & UK garage punk revival took over rock music. Whenever there’s a wave like that, it can be hard to know in the moment who is going to last and who is going to be a footnote. The Libertines are clearly a footnote, at least on the back of this album.

I've been listening to Neil Young since the early 90s and at almost no point in that run have I been able to get past his voice (give or take a song here or there, e.g. "Cinnamon Girl.") Which is a shame cause there's a ton of good stuff throughout his catalog. His lyrics are profound. The music is urgent and thoughtfully crafted, even in the folksier corners that I'm usually allergic to. I *want* to love him and there are plenty of other lead singers with nasal, kind-of-annoying voices that I love. So what is it about Neil Young that cuts me off at the pass? Anyway, I never got to a point on On The Beach where the music was so good that I didn't focus on his voice. "Revolution Blues" came closest.

I don't know have much to say about CCR -- who certainly deserve their spot and I can completely get how someone stan for them -- but one thing that occured to me is that I can't hear their music without picturing a montage of Vietnam movie scenes.

One of my 10 favorite albums. Only about half of my top 25 are on this list, so what a joy it has been to spend today with Purple Rain on repeat. I didn't understand or appreciate Prince until I was well into my 20s, but these songs all have a special place for me. The storytelling, craftsmanship, atmosphere, and inventiveness of each track is a wonder. Truly one of the most gifted artists of our lifetime. Not many others can create pop music that moves your butt and your heart, while also being musically complex. I'm of the opinion that this is the greatest pop album ever made. And let me just save a line or two for the title track. That sucker is 9 minutes of perfect notes, guitar tones, vocal flourishes, surprising timing that gives it a "performed live every time" feel, rises and falls, use of silence and volume, emotionally moving singing, wonderfully enigmatic and yet universal lyrics. The way it builds and climaxes never ever fails to not raise the hair on my arms. Is it actually my favorite song ever? It's at least in that kind of conversation. The five-est of five star albums.

I'll take "Music That Hasn't Aged Well" for $500, Ken.

You'll be shocked (shocked!) that this didn't really click with me. The production is pretty though.

Zoso and Houses of the Holy fully triggered something in my adolescent brain which eventually led me to grab each Zeppelin album as it popped up in our local used CD store (Weird Harolds represent!) What they start here will fuel all of their best music moving forward, but of all of the pantheon albums, I find III to be the most uneven and least essential. "Friends" and "Celebration Day" are bonafide staples, but they've never clicked for me, which more or less stops the whole project from ever being something I ever listen to front and back since they're tracks two and three. There are a dozen songs in their catalog that sound like "Out on the Tiles," and all of them are more inspired. "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper" benefits from hearing "Shake Em On Down" (the version I found was by RL Burnside) but the stereo separation and vibrato amplifier are unsettling. I could see it messing with someone on the wrong substances. If they'd swapped any of those out for "Hey Hey What Can I Do," a b-side to "Immigrant Song," I would approve. All that said, it contains some of the very best Zeppelin: "Immigrant Song" which always seems like it's too overplayed, too over-the-top, but then it kicks into gear and kicks a$$ all over again; "Since I've Been Loving You" swelters into a groove that I imagine pairs well with the *right* substances; "Gallows Pole" and "Tangerine" are Robert Plant at his best; "That's the Way" never mattered to me until it was situated with the right visuals in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (and now matters to me a great deal.) I'll save my most effusive praise for "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp," possibly the single Zeppelin song I most look forward to running into all these years later, after the call to head banging has faded and there is no one to simply drive around with listening to music with the windows down. Page's guitar is so propulsive and Robert Plant's vocals are so sly. The breakdown in the second half of the song is absolute dynamite. It's enough to wish they had a full collection of all of their songs performed acoustically. Three stars + an extra star for "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" sounds about right.

My wife and I listened to this album a lot when we were first dating (at her behest.) It has a special place in my heart.

Trying my hand at in-depth critical analysi ... oh forget it, I just didn't like this.

Hearing Björk for the first time in 1993 was so confusing. MTV and Alternative Rock Radio positioned it alongside the best of bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam. There were a wave of amazing women bursting onto the scene like PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, and The Breeders, but Björk was too weird to be lumped in. There were bands debuting that stretched what could ride Nirvana's wave -- Morphine, Flaming Lips, and the Cranberries -- but those bands were all guitar-forward (in Morphine's case, bass guitar.) But even though Björk was playing with electro music, she was far too alien to fit in any sort of pop category. She also didn't really fit *anywhere*, so under the generous umbrella that was 'Alternative' she went, buoyed by an undeniable lead single in "Human Behavior." She sounded like no one else out there, because of her eclectic sonic template as well as her mercurial, alien, Lolitaesque voice. There was a wild abandon in her music. It only really made sense when it was grounded by a visual artist like michel gondry, which itself is telling since most of her videos were bonkers. She was a force of nature calling like a Norwegian siren to anyone who wanted to explore the boundaries of music. But for whatever reason, it took decades to grow on me. When it clicked, it clicked hard, though I don't love the techno spine of this album. The moments that most draw me in are the ones that point to Post, Homogenic, and Vespertine: the afformentioned "Human Behavior," "Aeroplane," "Venus as a Boy," "The Anchor Song." Beyond those, Debut is littered with fun moments amongst its dance party. The strange step-into-another-room moments on "There's More to Life Than This." The out of left field bare-bones cover of "Like Someone in Love," even more delightful since you already thought the album had already taken up permanent residence in left field. The Smiths-on-ketamine lyrics of "Violently Happy." But her music gets richer, fuller, warmer, and more beautiful as she moves away from the rave hall and towards the headphone experience on the next three albums, one of the very best three-album runs in music history. It's a felony that neither Post nor (especially) Homogenic are on this list. Still, there's enough creativity and delight on Debut to earn a spot on any list of essential albums.

There are a handful of 90s alt rock bands that get critical and fan love that I just don't get. Bands like Superchunk, Super Furry Animals, and, yes, Manic Street Preachers. I've tried putting my finger on what I don't get, and I think it comes down to I never, *ever* get their songs in my head. It's probably overstating it to say these songs are devoid of melody, but they just don't hook me in. And of course many of the greatest songs aren't big-riff-hit-singles, but nearly every song I love has some kind of melody or atmosphere or SOMETHING that brings me back. These feel totally flat. I've always been fascinated by comparing a band like MSP to someone like Rage Against the Machine. Those RATM songs are almost entirely built on taking one riff and thrashing it till they've milked every ounce of its value out of it, and then getting out fast. Yet somehow I find their songs hummable, re-listenable, and fully fleshed out. Maybe it's the production quality? There's no nuance in the production here at all. No atmosphere, everything kind of at the same volume. And I'm not pining for an album full of radio-friendly ear worms, but I do think on some level that's what these songs are going for. They *sound* like songs that are developing a melody, but they aren't at any point. And I'm grumpy about it because people LOVE this album and I've tried to get into it for at least 20 years and at no point have I found my way in. The lyrics are great though.

Enough Steely Dan already.

On one hand, Biggie is one of the greatest storytellers in all of rap. His rhymes are deceptively complex, he’s easy to understand, and he paints vivid landscapes of the life of an east coast gangster. He changed the genre forever. On the other hand, I’ve always found the production pretty muddy and uninspired, and tiresome after an hour. RZA or Dre or any number of others would have been incredible. Or imagine some of those early Fugees or Nas songs with Biggie at the helm. Tupac’s works suffered from the same issues. It’s still a stone cold classic. I just wish it went a little harder. He deserved better.