My 1001 Albums Journey

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2.88

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1033 albums remaining

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1970

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Metal

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Bone Machine Tom Waits	5	2.85	+2.15
Surfer Rosa Pixies	5	3.5	+1.5
Arise Sepultura	4	2.73	+1.27

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Foo Fighters Foo Fighters	1	3.49	-2.49
Tommy The Who	1	3.33	-2.33
With The Beatles Beatles	2	3.66	-1.66
The Velvet Underground & Nico The Velvet Underground	2	3.61	-1.61
Odelay Beck	2	3.46	-1.46
Cheap Thrills Big Brother & The Holding Company	2	3.42	-1.42
Tres Hombres ZZ Top	2	3.42	-1.42
Beauty And The Beat The Go-Go's	2	3.39	-1.39
Court And Spark Joni Mitchell	2	3.35	-1.35
Neon Bible Arcade Fire	2	3.34	-1.34

5-Star Albums (5)

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Popular Reviews

With The Beatles

Beatles · 1 likes

2/5

In their early days, my understanding is the Beatles were playing multiple gigs a night for years before breaking out. This is how I imagine one of those performances may have sounded. Solid collection of covers and easy pop numbers… for the time. Beyond its time capsule value, I don’t understand why someone might prefer to listen to this over say, the Marvelettes or Smokey Robinson. Particularly mediocre, especially when compared to their other albums.

1-Star Albums (4)

All Ratings

White Blood Cells

The White Stripes

3/5

Kinda cool; evokes kids in a garage playing their favorite black sabbath, nirvana riffs. You can hear the country influence. Stripped down minimalist cool, but albums too long for me. Love ‘we are going to be friends’

Foo Fighters

1/5

Oh my goodness. Tedious, bland, sophomoric. Sometimes it sounded like boring Nirvana. Terrible guitar work. Almost gave up during ‘Exhausted’ and I thought it was finally getting good… but it was just Spotify auto-playing Blink-182.

Arise

Sepultura

4/5

Fire Of Love

The Gun Club

3/5

Love the delta blues influence and surf rock guitar styling

Live!

Fela Kuti

3/5

Cheap Thrills

Big Brother & The Holding Company

2/5

Too boomer. Guitars are cool tho.

Tres Hombres

ZZ Top

2/5

It’s ok. Very nice production; solid bops. Vocals are an unremarkable, though. Would prefer to listen to their older boogie influencers or contemporaries like Allman Bros or Skynyrd.

Parklife

Blur

3/5

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

The Incredible String Band

1/5

I’m sure there is a time and a place for this music but it is not here with me in the 21st century. Weird and corny. Whimsical medieval psychedelic folk - I can appreciate that it is an influence on British rock n roll, but that’s not enough to make this album good (for me).

Neon Bible

Arcade Fire

2/5

Is k. I realized that this stuff is the precursor to the hoot holler stomp nonsense of the 2010’s and it kinda took me out.

Stankonia

OutKast

4/5

Shaka Zulu

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

4/5

Beautiful vocals.

Paranoid

Black Sabbath

5/5

RIP Prince of Darkness

Beggars Banquet

The Rolling Stones

3/5

Band On The Run

Paul McCartney and Wings

4/5

This album rules.

Beauty And The Beat

The Go-Go's

2/5

Bit bland. Needs some seasoning.

Modern Life Is Rubbish

Blur

2/5

Too long. C’mon guys.

Elephant

The White Stripes

4/5

Millennial canon. Great pacing in song sequence. Love the acoustic tracks. Stripped down blues rock n roll. Bops straight through.

The White Album

Beatles

3/5

There are some bops to be sure but the best tracks are essentially americana, blues & rock n’ roll studies. Bit long innit.

Hounds Of Love

Kate Bush

3/5

Pelican West

Haircut 100

3/5

Boppy saxy

The Undertones

3/5

Opus Dei

Laibach

2/5

Odelay

Beck

2/5

It’s ok. Definitely a product of its time. A bit corny with the slide guitar and record scratches. Beck makes very safe, hard to dislike music. It’s also hard to love.

Led Zeppelin II

Led Zeppelin

5/5

Absolute classic. No skips. Chock full of iconic riffs. Drums are tight, vocals are raw. Energetic and subversive response to the flowery folk of the time.

Giant Steps

The Boo Radleys

2/5

Rumours

Fleetwood Mac

5/5

What more can be said about this legendary masterpiece? Devastatingly good.

Surfer Rosa

Pixies

5/5

There isn’t a hard rockin band post 1988 that doesn’t have surfer rosa in its dna.

Pretzel Logic

Steely Dan

3/5

Tago Mago

Can

3/5

Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

Dead Kennedys

2/5

Rain Dogs

Tom Waits

4/5

It’s the early 80’s, I’m drunk and wandering downtown looking to bum a cigarette from a corner Gypsy palm reader.

Live At Leeds

The Who

2/5

There’s a ‘you had to be there’ element that is difficult to overcome as first time listener in this our year of the lord 2025. It feels soaked in nostalgia for a benighted period in which a bunch of white British guys could pretend to be Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry and be taken seriously. As a modern listener, it’s just corny and almost a caricature of its influences. A poor copy. That being said, Pete Townsend’s guitar work here is nice to listen to and Keith Moon’s drumming is just a perfect harmony to the vibe. Vocals and melodies are mid, friends.

Bone Machine

Tom Waits

5/5

When I was in college in the early 00’s, I took an introductory music class to satisfy an arts requirement. We were taught how to analyze music and understand some basic elements of a song. For one assignment, were to bring in a piece of music we liked and analyze it for the class: is it 4/4 time, are those half notes or quarter notes, etc. After a few reggaeton presentations, I went up and played The Earth Died Screaming. Lemme tell you I might as well have gone up there and ripped a huge fart - just a wave of revulsion, confusion. My classmates were incredulous. I gave my analysis and turned to my professor. “Tom Waits… I’m impressed!” Sweet vindication. Anyway, reader, there’s no accounting for taste but this album rules and if you want to impress smart people and appear super cool, you will play them some Tom Waits.

Master Of Puppets

Metallica

3/5

The Chronic

Dr. Dre

4/5

This is my first time listening to the Chronic. The word is smooth. Great use of funk samples and creative lyricism. A really enjoyable listen all the way through. I appreciate the cohesiveness of the album’s elements around the theme of chilling out and the importance of being laid back, knowing how to seize pleasure in a violent, unjust and chaotic world.

Siamese Dream

The Smashing Pumpkins

3/5

Fuzz pedals and tabloid press. The crown jewel of alt rock. Gen X’s Smile: a groundbreaking gorgeous collection of songs from a mentally ill auteur.

The La's

2/5

Electric

The Cult

2/5

Tommy

The Who

1/5

I listened to as much of this as I could muster. Maybe seven songs? The word pretentious gets thrown around a lot and tends to be conflated with elitism. This album is pretentious in that it takes itself super seriously and it just doesn’t have the depth. The melodies are mediocre, the topics are so painfully boorish - it betrays the Who’s desire to appear as some kind of working class response to their contemporaries. I respect they were trying to do something; it’s just that they aren’t as smart as they think they are.

With The Beatles

Beatles

2/5

Court And Spark

Joni Mitchell

2/5

What I hear when I listen to this album is what must have been an affable and charismatic young woman’s access to tremendous artistic resources. Beautiful production, tight band, sweet harmonies, and Robben Ford’s guitar work is wonderful - all to prop up painfully vapid lyrics, indulgent interludes, and a lead vocalist with no range. Joni Mitchell reminds me of that rich kid who wanted to be an artist and lined everything up just right… except the authenticity.

Siembra

Willie Colón & Rubén Blades

3/5

A nice listen. If I saw this in a record store, I would pick it up. I can see this being an album I come back to and grow to love. Just feels like home

Trio

Dolly Parton

3/5

Very nice harmonies. Just good ole country melancholy. Not as sweet as their second installment, but worth a listen.

They Were Wrong, So We Drowned

Liars

1/5

I feel like if your opening track reminds me of my morning subway commute (in a bad way), you’re not even trying. I suppose I am of a somewhat conservative mindset when it comes to assessing music - it is art but it is also entertainment. You have to balance these two things to capture a listener.

Moon Safari

Air

3/5

I like this. Vivek and chill, cool bass lines.

Van Halen

3/5

Van Halen kind of reminds me of Red Hot Chili Peppers in that VH was a successful rock act with an amazingly talented guitarist and a bad vocalist. Without some context, this album doesn’t hit as hard. Eddie, as far as I know, revolutionized the electric guitar. He reengineered his instrument and opened an entirely new world of possibilities for generations to come. There’s a good reason that replicas of EVH’s “frankenstrat” are still widely available today. Eddie’s lead lines are iconic, electrifying, timeless. But I find myself cringing at the vocals and the chord progressions, in general. But I will always, always crank up ‘Eruption’ til the day I die.

Future Days

Can

3/5

I enjoyed the instrumental tracks and vibes nature of the album overall.

Hot Fuss

The Killers

3/5

This came out during my high school years. Everyone around me was obsessed but I didn’t get it back then. After a few listens, I can see it. I enjoy the vocal styling, especially on “Everything Will be Alright”. This feels like an emo security blanket. Hopeful melancholy.

Vanishing Point

Primal Scream

3/5

I enjoyed this a lot. Found it mellow and soothing. Vibey.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Eurythmics

2/5

The Fat Of The Land

The Prodigy

4/5

Rubber Soul

Beatles

3/5

Not bad, I feel like I can see the band’s originality begin to unfold here where the songs are sounding less like covers and more like the Beatles. I don’t know what possessed them with “Run for your Life” but it’s an otherwise solid album with serious bops.

The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground

2/5

Oh man, I thought i generally liked the Velvet Underground. But I guess I never gave this as close a listen as I should have. Comes off pretentious, melodramatic, and kinda lazy. There are some nice melodies and smooth vocals, but there’s a sense of desperation that comes off as… immature.

Buffalo Springfield Again

Buffalo Springfield

2/5

You've Come a Long Way Baby

Fatboy Slim

3/5