Very interesting jazz/hip-hop album from Beastie Boys. Haven't heard much of their album work before (only the hits), so I can't say I expected such cool production and neat instrumentation from them. Really surprising work from a group that I thought was more one-dimensional than this. Loved the long instrumental segments, the crazy unique beats, and some of the features. The vocal mixing left a little to be desired at times, with the vocal lines almost disappearing behind the beat in some songs. In addition, I've always found the flow of Beastie Boys tracks to be a little lacking, even if the lyricism is generally pretty good. But overall, a much better listen than I expected going in. Would be happy to listen to more from them in the future.

I’m not always a fan of pure instrumental hip-hop. I feel like so much of the joy in hip-hop is in seeing the combo of killer production with a great rapper, the pairing of poetic production and lyricism. For all its strengths, I often feel you end up missing something if the vocals aren’t there. With that said, I was really pleasantly surprised by how well DJ Shadow kept my attention the whole time. Really well-structured album with a lot to enjoy, great sampling and beat creation, and a surprisingly easy-to-follow narrative given the lack of pure words. There were several songs that achieved a kind of flow state, where the meaning of the record sort of flowed through the beats. Really great stuff. With that said, a few songs didn’t quite work for me, with either samples and beats that didn’t quite meet in the middle in terms of a consistent time signature, or else production that was just to busy to get all the way into. Still, a great record with a ton to love.

I don’t have much experience with Iggy Pop, so I went into this record fairly blind. It was a good record, with solid rock instrumentation and a good vocal performance from Iggy (whose voice is a weird blend of Bowie and Joe Cocker in a way?), but is it a hot take to say I don’t quite get what’s so essential about this record as to include it in the 1001 albums list? Like, don’t get me wrong, there weren’t really any songs I disliked or anything. But the first four songs were extremely forgettable, kind of doing a Rolling Stones/late era-Beatles/Thin Lizzy thing years after those original records. They weren’t bad, but I was surprised at just how…generic they felt. Things picked up with “Tonight” and “Success,” which were my two favorite tracks on the album, and then got more experimental and interesting with the final few songs. These tracks really saved the album for me, even though they won’t stick too long in the mind. “Tonight” was a great song, but I prefer the Bowie version from a little later. The last thing I’ll say is that the mixing left a little to be desired. This was not going for a super clean sound clearly, and I thought the best songs here really captured that feeling (“Success” was especially good in that regard). But some songs had the vocal track way too low, and others brought Iggy in a little heavy. It felt like a record that could have used a little more time fiddling with the details to get a slightly nicer sound at the back end, which would totally have been possible without sacrificing the dirty sound. I want to be clear: I liked this album just fine. But there’s no tracks on it that I see myself returning to anytime soon. As a member of this list, it feels a little lesser-than.

This was just about a perfect album. Excellent instrumentation, a pitch-perfect vocal performance from Marley and his backing vocalists, incredible lyrics that sadly seem to age better every year, and crystal-clear production are just some of the highlights of an album that moves from strength to strength without ever faltering. All of the 9 tracks are at least very good, with at least 6 verging into the territory of great, classic, and legendary. Marley was a generational talent, and you feel every inch of that here. This is everything you could ever expect any from a reggae album and more.

I have such weird feelings on this album. On the one hand, I really enjoyed listening to it - I had a good time, and I thought every song was at least worth the time to listen to it. On the other hand, I couldn't help but wish it had been more than it was. This record is a foundational hip-hop album, featuring some of the earliest forays into experimental and alternative sounds that would shape the genre to this day. A Tribe Called Quest are genuine legends, and their lyricism pushed the boundaries of early hip-hop in so many ways. It's very interesting to hear this album, however, because I personally can't help but notice all the ways this formula has been iterated and improved upon since then. This is probably a super younghead take (and I'm okay with that), but there is just a very dated sound to the rapping on this record. It comes and goes in places (with some songs sounding more modern), but there is a real feeling that the cadence and flow of rap is being discovered in real time here. It must have been mind-blowing at the time, but in retrospect it just feels like Quest is trying to justify and explain their sound more than just telling a story from within it. Several tracks spend entire verses discussing how to rap and how to listen to rap, which is honestly just weird in 2025. I don't know that it's necessarily fair to judge this record by the standard of 2025 rapping, but it did impact my enjoyment. One arena which has not aged a day, however, is the production. This album is full of varied beats, incredible samples, and awesome production throughout. Even now, 35 years later, the sound of the album is still so fresh and clean - you could rap over these beats today, and no one would find it out of place or odd. A lot of the time, I found myself just enjoying the sample work and beats, and tuning out of the vocal work. None of my criticisms of the vocals or lyrics are intended as criticisms of Quest as writers or rappers - this group practically invented a big part of modern hip hop sound, and I'm not blind to that. But you can tell that even they are still figuring rap out, which hurts your enjoyment when listening to the record in the modern day. This is such a historically significant record, but at the same time I just can't see myself returning to it often.