My 1001 Albums Journey

142

Albums Rated

2.92

Average Rating

13%

Complete

947 albums remaining

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2010s

Favorite Decade

Psychedelic-rock

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5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

Breakdown

By Genre

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Live At The Witch Trials The Fall	5	2.64	+2.36
Yeezus Kanye West	5	2.78	+2.22
Throwing Muses Throwing Muses	5	2.98	+2.02
Younger Than Yesterday The Byrds	5	3.13	+1.87
Vespertine Björk	5	3.16	+1.84
Rain Dogs Tom Waits	5	3.2	+1.8
Tigermilk Belle & Sebastian	5	3.22	+1.78
Little Earthquakes Tori Amos	5	3.23	+1.77
Daydream Nation Sonic Youth	5	3.3	+1.7
You Want It Darker Leonard Cohen	5	3.34	+1.66

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Bad Michael Jackson	1	3.81	-2.81
Brothers In Arms Dire Straits	1	3.74	-2.74
Master Of Puppets Metallica	1	3.73	-2.73
Blood Sugar Sex Magik Red Hot Chili Peppers	1	3.5	-2.5
Rio Duran Duran	1	3.49	-2.49
The Marshall Mathers LP Eminem	1	3.49	-2.49
Pretzel Logic Steely Dan	1	3.4	-2.4
Hybrid Theory Linkin Park	1	3.39	-2.39
Come Away With Me Norah Jones	1	3.38	-2.38
Aftermath The Rolling Stones	1	3.38	-2.38

5-Star Albums (16)

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Popular Reviews

Teenager Of The Year

Frank Black

1/5

Pixies were my favorite band in college and their early albums are still among my favorites. While Kim Deal went on to more great things with The Breeders, The Amps, and her first solo album this year at age 63, Frank Black’s post-Pixies solo albums are poor. This is not worthy of a place on this list.

1 likes

1-Star Albums (24)

All Ratings

Technique

New Order

3/5

American IV: The Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash

3/5

Funeral

Arcade Fire

5/5

A great album. I listened to it a lot when it first came out and considered it one of the best albums of the 21st century. Revisiting 20 years later and with their image tarnished by the allegations against Win Butler, it still sounds fresh and every bit as good as I remembered.

Transformer

Lou Reed

3/5

Mixed - 3 great songs (Perfect Day, Walk on the Wild Side and Satellite of Love), and a lot of mediocre songs.

3 + 3

The Isley Brothers

4/5

The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground

5/5

One of the greatest albums of all time. It still sounds fresh and innovative 56 years after it was recorded.

Teenager Of The Year

Frank Black

1/5

Bummed

Happy Mondays

1/5

The second one star album in a row. Growing up in North of England while the Madchester scene was happening, I have tried very hard to like the Happy Mondays but have never been able to understand their appeal. This was not an easy listen.

Diamond Life

Sade

2/5

Inoffensive background music. Formulaic and bland.

Blur

4/5

The album starts great with Beetlebum and Song 2 but is mixed after that.

Can't Buy A Thrill

Steely Dan

2/5

This was a struggle to get through. Bland soft rock.

Mothership Connection

Parliament

4/5

This was a fun(ky) listen. Not a genre I would normally listen to but I really enjoyed this.

American Idiot

Green Day

4/5

Soul Mining

The The

2/5

Pretentious and dull. I was not a fan of the The The when I heard them in the 80s and they don’t sound any better now.

Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

Bill Callahan

4/5

Tommy

The Who

1/5

Vauxhall And I

Morrissey

3/5

Alien Lanes

Guided By Voices

1/5

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

Public Enemy

3/5

Hounds Of Love

Kate Bush

4/5

The Stranger

Billy Joel

2/5

I've had a visceral dislike for Billy Joel since hearing Uptown Girl and Just The Way You Are. I have never listened to a whole album and was not looking forward to it, even more so when I saw The Stranger was from 1977, the year punk broke, where there was so much good music being released. It was better than I was fearing and I enjoyed Vienna and She's Always A Woman but some of the tracks were dreadful, particularly Only The Good Die Young and Get It Right The First Time. I'm relieved to see this is his only album on the list. It wasn't quite as bad as I expected, but I in no hurry to listen to it again. 1.7 stars rounded up to 2.

The Trinity Session

Cowboy Junkies

1/5

She's So Unusual

Cyndi Lauper

2/5

Brothers In Arms

Dire Straits

1/5

Billion Dollar Babies

Alice Cooper

1/5

Come Away With Me

Norah Jones

1/5

Take Me Apart

Kelela

2/5

Music in Exile

Songhoy Blues

4/5

Signing Off

UB40

3/5

Hot Buttered Soul

Isaac Hayes

4/5

Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth

5/5

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco

4/5

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

5/5

It has been a long time since I listened to this and it was a lot better than I remembered. I don't care much for Blowin' In The Wind but Girl From The North Country is a great song and Masters Of War is very powerful and sadly even more relevant in 2025 than it was in 1963.

What's Going On

Marvin Gaye

4/5

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Soft Cell

3/5

James Brown Live At The Apollo

James Brown

2/5

Completely forgettable - nothing stood out. 31 minutes including a 2 minute intro and almost 11 minutes of Lost Someone which just ambles along with crowd screams in the background. He was a great showman and has an incredible voice but I don't think this album showcases his best songs.

Amnesiac

Radiohead

5/5

School's Out

Alice Cooper

2/5

Get Rich Or Die Tryin'

50 Cent

1/5

Dire Straits

2/5

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

4/5

All Mod Cons

The Jam

2/5

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips

5/5

I was lucky enough to see them play this album in its entirety on the 20th Anniversary of its release at Boston Calling. It was a great show, complete with 30 foot inflatable pink robots on the stage. This is their masterpiece , and Do You Realize?? gives me goose bumps every time I hear it.

Maggot Brain

Funkadelic

4/5

Immigrés

Youssou N'Dour

3/5

Shaka Zulu

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

2/5

Aftermath

The Rolling Stones

1/5

I listened to the UK version which does not include Paint It Black which may have nudged the rating slightly higher. This has not aged well. The lyrics are extremely misogynstic and the music is unexceptional.

Bad

Michael Jackson

1/5

2112

Rush

2/5

Blood, Sweat & Tears

2/5

Rio

Duran Duran

1/5

Crazysexycool

TLC

2/5

Pretzel Logic

Steely Dan

1/5

The best thing about this album was that it was only 33 minutes long although it felt a lot longer. Tedious, middle-of-the-road dad rock. The penultimate track, Charlie Freak, was the only one worth listening to. My second Steely Dan album in the first 55 days. Can't Buy A Thrill was bad - this was even worse.

Seventeen Seconds

The Cure

2/5

I like The Cure but they were to go on to create a lot better albums than this. A Forest still sounds great, but there was nothing else memorable.

Casanova

The Divine Comedy

1/5

Yeezus

Kanye West

5/5

Siamese Dream

The Smashing Pumpkins

4/5

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Simon & Garfunkel

4/5

Os Mutantes

3/5

All That You Can't Leave Behind

3/5

Ellington at Newport

Duke Ellington

4/5

Throwing Muses

5/5

This is a review of Throwing Muses eponymous debut album from 1986, released in the UK, not In A Doghouse which was released in 1998 in the US and contains their debut album, plus the Chains Chained EP and demo tracks. Lead inger Kristen Hersh was diagnosed bipolar after suffering a double concussion in a bike accident. After the accident, she continually heard music in her head, which became the songs on this album. The songs have constant tempo changes and go from singing to screaming and back again. A completely compelling listen. Almost 40 years on, I can still clearly remember the first time I listen to this record. At the time, I was fascinated with everything released on the UK 4AD label (also Cocteau Twins, early Bauhaus, Dead Can Dance and later Pixies, Pale Saints and Lush). I had not heard anything like it and didn't know what to make of it, but listened to it obsessively throughout my college years. Kristen Hersh must be one of the most underrated and overlooked artists. As well as Throwing Muses, she released several excellent solo albums and fronted 50 Foot Wave. Choosing a favorite album of all time is always difficult and I have several contenders, but if pressed to choose one, the debut Throwing Muses album would come out on top of the pile for me.

The Sensual World

Kate Bush

4/5

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

Brian Eno

4/5

Pink Moon

Nick Drake

4/5

Thriller

Michael Jackson

2/5