175
Albums Rated
3.27
Average Rating
16%
Complete
914 albums remaining
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1980
Favorite Decade
Punk
Favorite Genre
US
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
25
5-Star Albums
9
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
Top Styles
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Liars
|
5 | 2.11 | +2.89 |
|
Bubble And Scrape
Sebadoh
|
5 | 2.65 | +2.35 |
|
Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby
Girls Against Boys
|
5 | 2.66 | +2.34 |
|
Atomizer
Big Black
|
5 | 2.73 | +2.27 |
|
Sister
Sonic Youth
|
5 | 3.02 | +1.98 |
|
Maxinquaye
Tricky
|
5 | 3.05 | +1.95 |
|
Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys
|
5 | 3.06 | +1.94 |
|
Youth And Young Manhood
Kings of Leon
|
5 | 3.1 | +1.9 |
|
Rid Of Me
PJ Harvey
|
5 | 3.12 | +1.88 |
|
Queen Of Denmark
John Grant
|
5 | 3.13 | +1.87 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
|
1 | 3.3 | -2.3 |
|
Songs In The Key Of Life
Stevie Wonder
|
2 | 4.08 | -2.08 |
|
Behaviour
Pet Shop Boys
|
1 | 3.04 | -2.04 |
|
Steve McQueen
Prefab Sprout
|
1 | 2.99 | -1.99 |
|
Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys
|
2 | 3.93 | -1.93 |
|
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John
|
2 | 3.92 | -1.92 |
|
Want Two
Rufus Wainwright
|
1 | 2.84 | -1.84 |
|
Chris
Christine and the Queens
|
1 | 2.82 | -1.82 |
|
A Short Album About Love
The Divine Comedy
|
1 | 2.76 | -1.76 |
|
Hot Fuss
The Killers
|
2 | 3.73 | -1.73 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| R.E.M. | 3 | 5 |
| Sonic Youth | 2 | 5 |
5-Star Albums (25)
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Popular Reviews
Sebadoh · 1 likes
5/5
Lordy, this album is great! I've long been a fan of Sebadoh-adjacent bands and have even listened to Bakesale a few times, but this really struck a chord, which makes it the first album on here that I've listened to more than once in a day. I especially liked tracks 3, 9 and 15 but there's no real duds in here.
The Beta Band · 1 likes
4/5
I like the Beta Band. Interesting songs, lots of variety, etc. This album tracks.
Billie Holiday · 1 likes
2/5
I get it. Billie Holiday is a classic, and this album is too. I can overlook the shitty fucking orchestral backing (which apparently, our grandparents found quite enchanting), but man, her voice makes me want to claw at my ears; it constantly feels like she's on the verge of cracking. And the lyrics? Fuck me. I just don't care. 2.
Pere Ubu · 1 likes
4/5
Oh, man! I've heard of Pere Ubu,but never listened to them, which I'm regretting now. These guys are fantastic! At times, while listening, I was pretty sure Modest Mouse had these guys on repeat when forming their band. This redeems the last few weeks of shit we've been served up.
1-Star Albums (9)
All Ratings
Rufus Wainwright
1/5
Uuggghhhh... 1 out of 5. I'd give it 0, but the 1st and 10th songs at least don't remind me of a Radiohead cover band playing an airport Marriot lounge.
Rod Stewart
3/5
First time I've ever listened to a Rod Stewart album, and likely the last. I think I see the appeal to others, and it's certainly better than some other bands of the day, but in the end Rod is just not my jam.
Yes
5/5
Pantera
4/5
This album has been in my rotation since I first bought it in 1992. It doesn't hit quite as hard on the 10,000th listen as it did on the 1st, and I still find some of the guitar solos a tad Onanist for my tastes, but the anger and aggression still make my day better every time I listen. Possibly one of the best albums to punch Nazis to.
Prefab Sprout
1/5
Pop shite. Sonic pablum. Milquetoast synth garbage. God, I hated this. I had to turn the music off 4 different times before re-engaging. I made it to the end, and celebrated with another listen to Pantera as a palate cleanser.
But then, jk pointed out that there's an acoustic version of the album, as well. I gave that a listen and turns out, it's much better. If the medium is the message, then please talk to me via unplugged guitar than Casio noise box. If we were listening to the acoustic album, I'd give it three stars, but we're not.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
3/5
I absolutely did not need to listen to 42 bluegrass and old-style country songs. There's some genuinely great music on this bloated album, for sure, but not enough to earn it more than three stars.
James Brown
5/5
I loved this album. Compares to jazz albums from the same time and place it feels much more modern. And it's damn fun to listen to. Will def add this into the rotation.
Marvin Gaye
3/5
I think I need to listen to this a few more times before it sinks in. But, at first blush, I like it well enough...even with some of the dated 70s studio sound.
Sebadoh
5/5
Lordy, this album is great! I've long been a fan of Sebadoh-adjacent bands and have even listened to Bakesale a few times, but this really struck a chord, which makes it the first album on here that I've listened to more than once in a day. I especially liked tracks 3, 9 and 15 but there's no real duds in here.
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
I was excited to give this a listen, because I really loved this album 35 or 40 years ago. Turns out, I've moved on and, while it has some excellent songs, this just isn't my jam, def or otherwise.
3/5
Not their best album by a long shot. There's a few solid songs, but overall this was not anything I needed to hear . . . especially a 7-minute song about the pleasures of Australia or something.
Girls Against Boys
5/5
Oh wow. This band has been popping up on my You Might Also Like lists for years now, but I've never listened to them before today. What a mistake! From the first bass riff, I was hooked. I love the low end-heavy sound of two basses, and the drums somehow match that sound. The lead singer is sneering and hoarse sounding all at once, and I love that, too. I listened to this three times in a row and then moved on to later albums. Adding yet another band to my usual rotation.
Jimmy Smith
3/5
I enjoyed this. Did I need to hear it? Only if I hadn't heard any other Blue Note records from the 1960s. They have a sound. Maybe Jimmy Smith started that sound. I don’t know. But, it's a good listen.
The Who
2/5
Blergh. This didn't change my mind about The Who. I 10,000% did not need to hear this. Switched to High on Fire halfway through to clear the dust and cobwebs that this album was leaving behind.
Michael Jackson
3/5
I heard this in 1983 and that was plenty. It's fine.
Ice T
3/5
Boy, was this long. I liked some of it. I got caught on Midnight, feeling like I'd heard the song before, but not realizing why until suddenly it hit me that I was also listening to When the Levee Breaks and Black Sabbath. So, that was cool. In the end, though, my patience for this album wore thin.
Kings of Leon
5/5
Oh man, this is the good stuff. I'm not much a fan of the King's later work, but this album is a banger. I haven't listened to it in a couple years, and was stoked to see it pop up and remind me to do so. As usual, I barely know what the lyrics are saying, but as in any great (for me) band, it's the delivery that matters, and Caleb Whateverthefuck delivers. So, yeah, I liked this.
Green Day
4/5
I never listened to this album in full before. I kind of liked it. It seems to move away from pop-punk toward something more straightforwardly rock and roll. And there's some very good songs on there.
Happy Mondays
2/5
Not my jam. At all.
The Icarus Line
2/5
Listened, but mostly didn't like. Unclear why I needed to listen to this. A few catchy tunes doesn't outweigh the middling quality of the whole.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
So much misogyny! And this album pretty much cements my opinion that Hot Rocks is the most effective and complete greatest hits album in rock history, since it actually makes the Rolling Stones an interesting and enjoyable band...which is the opposite of what this album does.
Lambchop
2/5
I'm glad I listened past the first three songs on this album. Had I not, I would have hated it forever as a garbage rehash of 70s lounge music/Charlie's Angels themes. Now, having listened to the whole album, I can just be bored out of my fucking mind. Zzzzzzzz...
Two stars, though, because at least it's not Sad Muffin or whatever the fuck that shitbrit band was.
Beatles
5/5
Not many duds on here; in fact, maybe only one (For No One, if you must ask). I like Ringo's drum sound in Tomorrow Never Knows. I like the horns in Got to Get You Into My Life (even if they're busily sonically quoting Motown). I really like the sitar wherever it shows up. The album art is fantastic. Four stars.
WAIT. Back to Tomorrow Never Knows. What a fucking great song. I mean really great. I can listen to it a lot and it doesn't grow old. One extra star for giving me that. Five stars.
Duke Ellington
3/5
This was fine. Big band jazz makes me feel like I'm 8-years old visiting my grandparents in Yonkers with my grandfather talking about his pre-war days playing sax at clubs around the city. It's half good memories, half fusty nostalgia, and very little relevant to my daily life. Will I listen to this again? Nah.
Big Black
5/5
Oh, fuck yes. It made me very happy to see this come up. Big Black is my favorite Steve Albini band, and this is my favorite Big Black album. There's some great songs on here and the lyrics are so extremely dark, but it's the actual *sound* of the album that captures me every time. Albini had a vision and it shows: abrasive, harsh, and metallic, but with no sludge or gloom in the production. It's like the aural equivalent of suurgical steel and bright lights, and I love it.
Johnny Cash
3/5
I love me some Johnny Cash. This is a good record. Not his best. You can feel, though, his appreciation, possibly affection, for the prisoners. And there's in retuen. Of course, this is pre-War on Drugs, pre-carceral state stuff. I can't imagine this happening now. Anyway, i'll probably lsten to this again. But, still only 3 star material.
Tears For Fears
3/5
I had hoped 35 or 40 years distance would give me a new, more positive perspective on this band. It did not. File under: crap, easy listening.
But, there's a couple okay songs that, at a minimum, play a significant role in my memories of high school. So.... I guess 3 stars.
Rush
5/5
Ahhh... Fourteen year-old me is very, very happy that fifty-three year-old me still loves this album. Three thumbs up!
The Go-Go's
4/5
This was much better than I expected. My vague memories of this band are of a just another purveyor of 80s garbage. But, no! This wasn't the over-produced, rubbery synth treacle of memory. Real guitar sounds catchy tunes, and some memorable lyrics and song titles (Skid Marks on my Heart, anyone?). I ended up enjoying this quite a bit. I'm actually adding this to my playlist.
Holger Czukay
2/5
Nope. I love Can, and you can hear how Czukay brought his influence to bear on Can, but without the others in the band, this is just some noodly shit. Persian Love, in particular, just suuuuuxxxxxx.
De La Soul
3/5
This actually aged pretty well. The game show interludes were moderately amusing. The music holds up nicely. The lyrics are...um...sort of par for the course. Probably won't make regular rotation, but no hip-hop ever does.
The Byrds
3/5
You can sort of hear some early psych influences among the songs on this album, and some of the songs are quite good, but this is another band that really shines on their best of albums instead of the originals because some songs are just so fucking terrible. I Come and Stand at Every Door, for example. WTF?
Prince
4/5
This aged pretty well, and there's some very good songs on here. Heck, I could listen to this occasionally, even.
The Clash
4/5
This is a very, very, very good album that I never used to like. Maybe I'm mellowing.
The Zombies
3/5
This sounds very modern, very indie, very not my jam in larger than one song doses. So, historically interesting and no doubt meritorious, but only getting 3 stars from me because I'll never listen to it again.
Willie Nelson
4/5
Now this is a good album! I'm not the world's biggest Willy fan, but he's got a deep discography with lots of good stuff in it. This is definitely among them. I really like the super-spare production. I think it gives the concept more heft in its storytelling. Anyway, 4 stars for me.
Janis Joplin
3/5
This was pretty good.
Spacemen 3
4/5
Not their best, but still very good.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
Meh.
The Doors
3/5
The Doors, Because We Couldn't Let White British Twats Have a Monopoly on Stealing the Blues from Black People.
...and yet, I still like much of this album. It's probably just rank nostalgia, but there's some songs I really enjoy, especially Hyacinth House and Riders on the Storm.
Sorry, Jason.
Songhoy Blues
3/5
I was torn a bit by this album. I enjoyed some of the songs, and the guitar was excellent in places, but ultimately it pretty much sounded like a North African guitar band. And, to be overly reductive, there is a pretty common North African guitar band sound, and this wasn't a particularly transcendent version of that. So, yeah, it was fine.
The Smiths
4/5
I just loathe Morrisey's voice and I just love Johnny Marr's guitar. For an average band, this would kill the listening experience for me. But, The Smiths aren't average and, say what you will about his twee lounge singer act, Morrisey can write some damn fine lyrics. So, in the end, I very much like this album and will continue to listen to it.
The Divine Comedy
1/5
I'm gonna real time comment on this one.
Song 1: Fuuuuck, not another baroque pop turd in the music punchbowl.
Song 2: Everybody knows that I want to smash my phone. The brief episode of guitar sucks. The vocals suck worse.
Song 3: My dad would LOVE this.
Song 4: A bright spot! I think he really wants the object of this song to be a horse. I can almost overlook the horrible oboe. But then he starts imagining the object is his daughter/sister/dog and it starts getting fucking weird. I like it.
Song 5: Premise is promising, song doesn't live up to its promise.
Song 6: No.
Song 7: All I need is to never, ever, ever hear this again.
So, in sum, one song is just weird enough to be interesting, and the rest are garbage. I'm sure this music appeals to some people (fans of that Wainwright guy?), but I just don't appreciate anything about it.
Paul Simon
3/5
As a certified Philistine, I have a hard time distinguishing between Paul Simon albums. He writes some pretty little ditties, but in the end they all sound like a Paul Simon minus Art Garfunkle song. This album is no exception. In fact, in the catslog of things we've listened to, it would be listed first under "Unexceptional." This is in no way an album I ever needed to hear, but in the hearing I did not sustain any lasting psychic injuries like some we've heard. And for that, 3 stars!
R.E.M.
5/5
Yes! Yes! Yes!
I take back all the 5s I have conferred so far. THIS is a five-star album. And, not only is it a wonderful piece of sonic art, it marks the beginning of a remarkable 6- to 8-album run of some of the best American rock and roll ever put to vinyl or tape or whatever. And that's not just my Georgia chauvanism talking.
Portishead
4/5
I love this album. It's definitely not as accessible as their first two, but I think that's because they're moving away from triphop a little bit, or atleast away from the sampling heavy stuff. I dunno. Anyway, I love Beth Gibbons vocals and the kind of noisy, almost-droning but also hard-driving music the rest of the band lays down in songs like We Carry On and Small. Very good stuff.
Wild Beasts
2/5
I did not enjoy this album; I definitely did not need to hear it. But, it wasn't all bad. I think I could probably enjoy a pretty good single plus a B-side, I just didn't have the patience to figure out two songs I liked.
U2
4/5
This is a very good album with some legit classics. When I listen to it, I feel like it's maybe the last album U2 made before they fully transitioned from post-punk to whatever amalgam they became of rock/pop/etc. And, I won't lie, I like their next 3 albums better.
Teenage Fanclub
3/5
I see this album came out in 1991. That it sounds so very 1990s suggests to me that these folks were on the leading edge of alternative rock. I certainly heard of them in that time, but I don't know that I ever listened to them. And, having listened now, being early doesn't, apparently, mean you meet my subjective determination of what's great. I liked this album well-enough, but it doesn't really stand out for me. The guitars are a tad too pretty for me, and there's just too much harmonizing for my tastes. More dissonance and/or less singing would make me like this more. Anyway, pretty good, not great. I give it a 3.
Depeche Mode
4/5
I like Depeche Mode withe the proviso that they got better over time in the mid 80s to early 90s as their sound and lyrics got darker. This album maybe doesn't mark that turn, and definitely benefits from it. Dave Gahan's voice is like the inverse of Morrisey's, excellent in every way. So, not 5 star material, but close.
David Gray
2/5
Good Christ. Two songs in and time has slowed to a crawl. Sitting here on the plane, reading a book, and I feel like I've been listening to this for hours.
WTF. Weird enunciation on "So definite."
Yeah, no thanks.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
I sort of listened to this between family events this weekend. There were songs I some how knew, songs thatbwere intensely annoying, amd songs that were excellent. I didn't develop a fully-formed opinion, so I'm going to give it a 3 and come back later to listen more intently.
Madonna
4/5
Well...
I turned this on expecting to hate it....and I absolutely did not. In fact, I thought it was really excellent. I had the thought that it sounded a bit like late 1990s Beth Orton (but with Madonna's voice), so I checked the production credits. And there it was: William Orbit. I suspect that's why I liked this album so much. Or, at least, that's what I going to tell myself to preserve my self-image.
Linkin Park
2/5
Fuuuuuck, this is horrible. But at least it's not some chap in a Nehru collar weeping to the "lush" sound ofa clarinet, tinkling glasses, and a synthesizer. I'm adding a star for that.
White Denim
3/5
I feel like this band probably pretty much captures the spirit of what I think of as calliope indie or, maybe, carnival indie. I listen to it, and I can almost smell the popcorn and funnel cake. It makes me want to play skee ball. It also sounds a little bit like Yes in certain songs. So...I don’t hate it, but I probably will never listen to this band again.
The Beach Boys
2/5
I really dislike the Beach Boys. Nice blazers, though. And that white goat looks like you could go on a proper goat-packing trip with it. It seems powerful and nimble-footed. I would have it carry all of my liquor and maybe a large sleeping pad so I could camp in luxury. The goat and I would probably be good friends. It might even become my pet. And any fucking sound it would or could make would be preferable to listening to this band or this album. +1 star for a couple of vaguely catchy tunes.
The Monks
4/5
Tidal doesn't have this album, and I didn't have the chance to try and find it on other platforms. So, instead, I Iistened to everything these guys had available on Tidal. Dang! They just had one banger after another. I read on Wikipedia that they all used their instruments as percussion, and you can really hear it. Songs like "Boys are Boys and Girls are Choice" and "I Hate You" seem to pick really propulsive grooves and every instrument rides along with it. This is very, very much my jam. I probably give too many 5s, so I'm going to marshal them more carefully, but this is darn close to a 5.
Nine Inch Nails
4/5
With distance and time, I've come to enjoy this album. I mostly listened while riding my bike to/fro work and an appointment, so perhaps you can add the effect of wind to that list, too. Regardless, listening to this now, I'm not sure why I didn't like NIN back in the 90s. Maybe it was too many meatheads with NIN stickers, or knee-jerk opposition to media saturation, or who knows? Now, it sounds dark, but poppy, and kind of fun. So, yeah, Iiked it.
The Band
3/5
I guess this was okay. Now I know who sang "The Weight." Maybe that'll be useful in bar trivia. And "Chest Fever" has a pretry cool organ chord progression to start with that evolves into a kind of groovy organ solo. So, this album had that going for it. Otherwise, not my jam at all.
Fiona Apple
3/5
I wish I had more to say, but I don't. This was like a 3.45. Better than The Band, worse than early U2.
Deee-Lite
4/5
I love this album.
Television
5/5
This is such a wonderful band. Not quite as degenerate as Richard Hell, catchier than the New York Dolls, and altogether more listenable than the Overrated Fucking Ramones. Moreover, these guys influenced all of my favorite bands. So, yeah, I love this. I think Friction and Marquee Moon are my favorite tracks. Guiding Light is great, too, and I think Tom V's vocals sound a whole lot like Gordon Gano's, which is cool. Anyway, top rating for me.
Thundercat
2/5
This album was clearly written to annoy the everlasting fuck out of me.
Radiohead
4/5
I like this album quite a bit. It's not my favorite Radiohead album, but it's very good. It seems maybe a little more ambient-oroented than other albums without as much of the noise and clamor I really love. But still, it's Radiohead, and they're a solid 4 even on a bad day.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Damn, if I ran an oldies station for wealthy Boomers, I'd play this all the time. But, despite Dusty being very clearly a fantastic talent, this isn't anything I would listen to but for this website. If I had to choose between female Brit singers from the 60s, I'd pick Marianne Faithful. This stuff is too soul or pop or whatever for me to enjoy or listen to again.
50 Cent
3/5
So, initially, I was totally into this album. There's some great songs with excellent flow and some cool beats. And then, sometime during what felt like the 3rd hour of album 50 Cent and Nate Dogg pop up singing this ridiculously bad song, "21 Questions," and I turned it off. Christ. If I wanted to listen to an epically long album with limited lyrical content, I'd turn on Dopesmoker and follow Al Cisneros's smoke to the riff-filled land. At least I wouldn't stumble across any shitty R&B love songs on my journey. So, thanks, but no thanks.
On the semi-upside, after pissing away an hour of my life listening to this album, I did learn the origins of "It's your birthday, shawty." So, I guess I got that going for me.
Paul McCartney and Wings
3/5
Do I have to listen to this? Yes, I suppose I do.
...
The first three songs on this album are terrible. Just terrible.
Fourth song is much better. I quite like the bass and the saxophone actually works well! Five ain't bad. I like the Picasso song, too. And the bass line in 1985 slaps.
So, in it's totality, I'd call this a somewhat better than mediocre album. Some very good stuff, some very bad stuff. Straight three for me.
R.E.M.
5/5
Another classic without a single bad track.
ZZ Top
3/5
Wow. My memories of this album are deeply negative. Georgia rednecks loved it; I hated it. In 1983 it sounded cheesy and lame and it lacked any of the fire and anger that motivated me at the time. 42 years later? Well, it's still pretty cheesy, but I like it a lot more. The guitars sound dirty, maybe a little lecherous to match the lyrics (except for that fucking TV dinner song, WTF?), and it grooves in a way that an older, mellower me appreciates. I'd give it a 3.5 if I could, and I don't really want to give it a 4, so a 3 it is.
k.d. lang
4/5
This was surprisingly good.
Talking Heads
4/5
I don't have much to say about this beyond that it made me realize how unfamiliar I am with the Talking Heads discography. Turns out I've listened to My Life In the Bush of Ghosts a lot more than any TH album, except maybe Stop Making Sense. Anyway, I like it well enough.
4/5
I've never heard this band before. They're like Radiohead with 25% less depression. First few songs slap, though it kind of slows down after that. Solid overall, though. Will I listen again? Maybe, if I can remember the name
Björk
3/5
Björk is probably the best example of a musician I really, really want to like (I mean really!) and yet, cannot. I mean, like, every time I listen to an album of hers, I go in thinking, "This is the one." and come out thinking, "Huh. That was...very...Björk. Maybe next time." This album was no different. It was very definitely a Björk album and I'll very definitely not listen to it again.
Megadeth
3/5
Blech. Dave Mustaine, the most annoying man in all of thrash metal. He can write some catchy riffs, but I generally dislike his music and this album is no different. But still, it's thrash - my favorite kind of metal - and it merits a 3.45 minimum.
Sonic Youth
5/5
I didn't listen to this yesterday, but then I didn't need to. This album was my first intro to SY, and I've listened to it maybe more than any other album ever - except possibly Reign in Blood by Slayer. (If I had to pick my number one favorite album of all time, it would probably be a tie between those two.) There's not a single track on here that I don't like. Hell, I remember driving across western Kansas in the middle of the night in 1993 or something listening to Providence and that, maybe the oddest track on the album, was perfect: the lone piano, the record scratches and pops, the spoken word, and the transition to the single guitar riff that opens Candle. Fuckin a, I love this album.
I think, too, this album really marks SY's transition from no wave avant noise band to a fully formed guitar rock band. They remained loud, of course, and churned out plenty of long, flailing walls of noise, but albums became tighter and more attuned to pop culture (especially when Kim G was writing them). So, yeah, fuckin a, I love this album.
Malcolm McLaren
2/5
I did not like this one bit. I suspect McLaren just stole a bunch of music from other artists and stamped it with his name on it.
Nick Drake
2/5
Meh. Too pretty, too depressing, too soft, too flowery, too quiet, too somnambulistic, too much noodly guitar, too much jaunty piano, too much non-jazz marimba, too much mumbling, too much making me want to claw at my ears, too much making me want to scream in boredom, too much making me want to throw my phone out the window, too fucking folky.
The Beta Band
4/5
I like the Beta Band. Interesting songs, lots of variety, etc. This album tracks.
Sonic Youth
5/5
It's like 1001 Albums is here for me this week and gifted me another fantastic SY album to listen to. If you were travel back to 1992 and push eject on the cassette player in my car, you'd probably have around a 35% chance of ejecting this album. This (and Daydream Nation) occupied a lot of my attention at the time.
What I like about this album, in addition to the usual level of noise and chaos, is how much SY was fucking around with sampling, scratching, and even some level of rapping. It feels like a very, very late 1980s, New York City album. Master-Dik epitomizes this and, as far as I know, is also essentially the bridge song between SY and some of the band's efforts on Ciccone Youth with Mike Watt. But, you've also got J. Mascis in there fucking around on his guitar, and a whole lot of KISS references. Other standouts for me are Hot Wire My Heart. I think it hearkens back to Bad Moon Rising, with chugging guitars around 3:20 and Kim's fairly creepy lyrics. Stereo Sanctity is a ripper, too. I like Steve Shelley's drumming in the first part of the song and whatever the riff Thurston plays between his short verses has been stuck in my head for like 30 years. But, there's not a bad song on here in my estimation and, as a certified SY stan, I'm obligated by the terms of my contract to give this a 5.
The Magnetic Fields
4/5
Another fantastic album to listen to this week. I know these are randomly generated, but 1001 Song is just slaying it.
Anyway, this is a fantastic album that ...ahem... merits more than one listen. It's kind of hard to wrap your head around this many songs in one sitting, and there's a lot of gems buried in all those song. I think The Book of Love is maybe the most famous song off this album (it's certainly how I came to know about this album) and it's my favorite, but collectively this album is also really just great. It kind of boggles my mind that Stephin Merritt could just sit down and write 69 freaking pop songs that are as great as these. And there's sufficient musical diversity, not to mention wit, to keep my attention across the whole thing. All that said, I don't think it rises to a 5 for me. I'd probably give it a 4.499 because, in the end, it's a pop album and, while I've listened to it many times, it's not an album to which I will naturally gravitate.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
Turned this on, and started looking around for my sideburns and disco pants. But then someone started singing and I had the urge to light a cigarette and slam a Caipirinha. Several more songs followed and then it was done.
Overall, this was a perfectly nice salsa album of the sort that I would happily listen to while having a drink at a bar with friends. I won't, however, be voluntarily searching it out to listen to again.
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
4/5
Well....this album is more timely than ever. It may be more timely than even when it came out. And it's still hard to listen to more than once, possibly because it's the musical equivalent of an edition of The Nation or something.
Nonetheless, I've had this on cassette and CD since I bought my first copy in 1992 after hearing their absolutely raging cover of the DK's California Uber Alles on a compilation album from Alternative Tentacles. Frante's righteous anger has a place in my library, even if only for the rare listen.
Supertramp
2/5
Blech. How the hell did this end up on here? I mean, it's aptly named, so perhaps it was a lark by the 1001 author?
Paul McCartney
3/5
I guess this wasn't the worst album we've heard so far. It definitely wasn't the best, either. I'd call it a solid C effort from our erstwhile ex-Beattle. And, while I was listening to it, I renamed each of the songs to capture my impression of them.
Track 1: Nothingburger
Track 2: Wanker's Delight
Track 3: The Wanker Wanks Tonight
Track 4: Fade to Beige
Track 5: Hold my Organ/I'm Having a Sad
Track 6: Still Beige, Part 1
Track 7: Exhuming Ernest Tubb
Track 8: Not Quite Lola
Track 9: Whammy Ba...Hey, What?
Track 10: Theodore Gave a Little Bit
Track 11: Still Beige, Part 2
Track 12: Lieutenant Peeper's Lament
Track 13: Cthulu Ate My Tabs
Van Morrison
2/5
Not for me. Though it's better than Moondance by a long shot.
Machito
3/5
Good ol' Machito, whoever he was. He managed to make an album that 90 minutes into it, I started to wonder when it was going to be over so checked Tidal. Turns out, it had ended 55 minutes prior, and I was listening to everyone who had made an Afro-Cuban jazz album since. I assume that's why we listened to it, he made the mold. Anyway, it was fine.
Funkadelic
4/5
Well...
Imagine if Sun-Ra and Sly Stone had a baby, and that baby grew up and taught Anthony Kiedis and Flea how to be in a band. That baby would definitely be Funkadelic. And I like it quite a bit.
Skepta
4/5
I like grime, and I like this. I like the mixture of hardcore and trap, and it makes me wish I owned a Roland TR-808 so I could make sick bass lines to...um... be middle-aged to? Other than that, I don't have much of anything insightful to say about this. Ooh, yeah. If you liked this and you like punk, check out Bob Vylan, a grime punk duo from Britain. Great stuff!
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
Did they record this album through a pillow? Maybe I have a double ear infection? I dunno. Regardless, I found this album annoyingly muffled. However, when I was done shouting at the clouds about this, I very much enjoyed it. Like their fellow footwear observers in Lush and Slowdive, these folks churn out some dreamy, quasi-psyche guitar rock that hits quite nicely . . . even from underneath a pillow.
Stevie Wonder
2/5
Stevie has a few bangers (Superstitious, I Believe, Higher Ground), but so much of his output, and this album, is R&B. And given the choice between listening to 43:27 of R&B intermixed with some rare bangers or the melodious sounds of a Pinto full of Proud Boys being run through an industrial metal shredder, I would choose the shredder every single time. So...yeah...this album was groundbreaking and a best seller, and I nonetheless will never listen to it again.
Saint Etienne
2/5
I have no idea why I had to listen to this.
R.E.M.
5/5
I understand there are some who consider this among the weaker of R.E.M.'s discography. I don't get that. I think this album id fantastic. There's almost certainly a healthy overlay of nostalgia in that assessment, as this came out my junior year in high school and I have many associations of good times and particular songs, but even without those associations, I think these songs mostly hold up. Anyway, whatevs, I like it!
The Sugarcubes
3/5
Santana
3/5
That was pretty good, but not anything I could listen to with any regularity. If I want long guitar drive instrumental pieces, I'm going.to gravitate toward something a tad noisier. But, still, I enjoyed it. Oye Como Va has a special place for me, as our high school drumline adapted the drum break to a marching setup, and it was actually really fun to play and march to. So, there's that. But, random anecdotes aside, this a solid 3.
The Verve
4/5
The first song on this album is, I assume, the bands biggest hit and a legitimately fantastic song. And yeah, they sampled the Stones... this making it also the 2nd or 3rd best Rolling Stones song. So there's that. But, the rest is excellent, too. There's a couple places where I thought things sounded a tad repetitious, but overall this was a treat to listen to.
Dead Kennedys
5/5
Pixies
4/5
Green Day
4/5
Super Furry Animals
3/5
This was good. I found myself listening and enjoying, though looking back I can't say why and nothing particularly stood out for me. There were a few points where I found myself thinking, all this harmonizing and noodling reminds me of the Beach Boys, but, you know, enjoyable. Thus, I'd call this solid middle of the pack stuff.
PJ Harvey
5/5
I hate that you can't save reviews when rating, just in case you get interrupted and have to step away. Goddamit.
Oh well, skipping the review. This is fucking great and gets a 5. I'd give it more if I could.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I tried listening to 4 songs, could barely give one single shit about any of them and had to push the skip button after 3 to 7 seconds, realized life is too short to listen to things I don't like, turned PJ Harvey back on. Would rank this a 1, but it gets 1 extra star for its proximity to PJH.
Also, there are better Springsteen albums.
M.I.A.
4/5
Holy shit, now THIS is an album. I'd heard Paper Airplanes before, but never anything else from this album, and, man, is it fantastically chaotic. I don't know what M.I.A. uses to make her beats, but they hit hard. The last song is pretty fucking weak, but otherwise, this album is solid all the through. 4.5/5, but rounding down due to the weak-ass Timbaland song.
U2
5/5
My thoughts on this album, poorly articulated and poorly organized:
1. This is a very 90s album.
2. When this album came out, it seemed to me to be a departure from U2's prior efforts. My assessment hasn't really changed.
3. I know some guitarists who are dismissive of the Edge as a guitarist because, I dunno, his playing is simplistic or something. That may be true, but holy shit the dude just slays on the guitar atmospherics on this album.
4. Re: that last point, I wonder if the guitar atmospherics has something to do with the fact that Daniel Lanois produced this album. There's certainly other albums he's produced (and played guitar on!) that have excellent atmospherics. Mostly, I'm thinking about Fever In, Fever Out by Luscious Jackson, but also the Red Dead Redemption 2 soundtrack.
5. Overall, I really, really liked hearing this again and sort of wonder why I stopped listening. Maybe because so many recent U2 albums have felt like duds to me?
Neil Young
3/5
This was innocuously good, just fine for making dinner to and preparing for a trip. Maybe if I would have listened to the lyrics and stuff, it would have left more of an impression? I'll never know, since not once in my life has the answer to question, "What would I like to listen to now?" been Neil Young, and that is unlikely to change now.
The Adverts
3/5
I'm not a hugr fan of early British punk, but this was pretty good. There's some nice riffs and interesting lyrics, and I generally enjoyed listening. I probably won't ever revisit this, but it was good for one listen.
The Electric Prunes
3/5
OMG, why is this on here? What's next? Tiny Tim? Dr. Demento? I jest, sort of. This album isn't quite that bad, but it's not that good either. Production quality is an issue, but it also just sounds sort of dated. If we're gonna listen to psyche, how about the 13th Floor Elevators?
Van Halen
3/5
This might be only the 3rd or 4th time I've listened to this album in its entirety and each time I'm impressed by the number of songs I know. Were they hits, I have no idea, but VH clearly knew how to get airtime back when I was listening to the radio a lot. That said, I can't really claim to enjoy their music. It feels a lot like ZZ Top, Def Leppard, and all the other hard rock bands from the late 70s and 80s. There's some catchy tunes and impressive guitar work, but the style itself turns me off.
Billie Holiday
2/5
I get it. Billie Holiday is a classic, and this album is too. I can overlook the shitty fucking orchestral backing (which apparently, our grandparents found quite enchanting), but man, her voice makes me want to claw at my ears; it constantly feels like she's on the verge of cracking. And the lyrics? Fuck me. I just don't care. 2.
The Soft Boys
5/5
Oh wow. This album is just fantastic. Six songs in, so far, and there's not a dud among them. The guitar is excellent, vocals are a little weird,and melodies are catchy, but in a way I like. And, honestly, there's enough noise, and even almost drone, to keep me riveted. This may be my favorite "discovery" on this journey so far.
Old Pervert for the win. This is a great song!
Moving along, I don't much like this Queen of Eyes song. It's not overtly terrible, but mostly innocuous Byrds-like harmonies or whatever, so not my jam.
I guess the original album ended after Underwater Moonlight. And that would be a great album right there. But the additional songs on the re-issue are also just excellent. In fact, they may ramp up the weirdness. Vegetable Man is moving into Syd Barrett territory and I like it.
Definitely giving this a 5.
SAULT
3/5
There's some cool songs on here, and some dreck. Perfect example of a 3.
The Vines
4/5
Never heard this band before. I liked it. There are some very Nirvana-like sounds on here, but it clearly stands on its own. I'll be adding this to the rotation.
Various Artists
1/5
Uuuggghhhhhh..... this is worse than a Tiny Tim - Dr. Demento collab: popmas schmalz of the lowest order. This would be a big fat zero if I could give one, but I'm forced to elevate it artificially to a 1. File under: launch directly into the sun ASAP.
Talking Heads
4/5
This was better than the last TH album we listened to. I don't know what I gave it, but this is getting a 4 and no further review.
I didn't really listen to this, but in passing it was much better than the solo Rod Stewart album we listened to.
Donovan
2/5
This album was mostly disappointing. There's some excellent 60s psych buried among the dross, including Season of the Witch and The Fat Angel, but I found it otherwise unremarkable.
On a marginally related note, the Butthole Surfers did a fantastic cover of Hurdy Gurdy Man on their Pioughd album. I had never heard of Donovan before buying that album, and every time I listen to a Donovan song now, I wonder what it would sound like if the Buttholes covered it. Much better than the original, I suspect.
Traffic
2/5
Nope. Not today Steve Winwood. Maybe not any day.
Joni Mitchell
2/5
I tried. I really did. I listened to six whole songs all the way through. I even recognized one of them! And Ms. Mitchell clearly has a lovely singing voice and probably a bottomless well of talent for the well-cultueed to appreciate. For me? No. I couldn't finish the album. The songs blended together in one dreary miasma of pop preciousness that made me tired and pissy. Blech. 2.
Beck
4/5
This was a nice reminder to listen to this album. It's probably been 6 or 7 years since I listened last, and there was small element of a trip down memory lane in doing so now. I had forgotten, for instance, just how many snippets of this album's lyrics were part of the common lexicon among my friends back when I was teacher and then a grad student. For a while there, "Do the hotdog dance" was actually a way of saying that you were going to Houston...
Anyway, memories aside, this remains an excellent album. Beck had plenty of great beats and his wordplay is weirder than fuckall and, together, they make for a great listen that has aged well. It might not be my absolute favorite album we've listened to, but definitely a strong 4.
Mike Ladd
2/5
This is.... wordy. I mean, there are SO MANY FUCKING WORDS. Like, this guy, what does he do? He talks and talks and talks and talks and talks. I can't fucking keep up. And the beats can't either. It's kind of instructive to listen to this just after Odelay. Beck has a lot of words, too, and many of them are nonsense. But they're backed up by some great music. This album? Nope. The music is secondary, maybe tertiary: it's dim, muddy, uninteresting and, ultimately, buried under just un-fucking-bearable amounts of blathering about whatthefuckever. 2.
The Cure
4/5
The Damned
4/5
Another band that I should have listened to a long time ago. I listened to this three times while painting my brother's new house. And then, when it finished, up popped a Slits song. Good stuff!
The Smashing Pumpkins
5/5
Isaac Hayes
3/5
I had high hopes for this album. My parents had it on vinyl when I was younger, and the college-aged me enjoyed listening to it. Apparently, though, there was some degree of irony in that listening, or possibly a secondary understanding of coolness, that I no longer bring to the experience, because now the album seems long, dated, and not that cool.
Portishead
4/5
I hit the number on Siamese Dream before I actually put in my review. That was dumb. So, of course, it was maybe the 5th time I've done it this week. Which makes me a giant dummy.
Anyway, Siamese Dream is such a brilliant fucking album. There's not a single song on there that I can't listen to on repeat for hours which, I more or less did while painting a different room in my brother's new house. Gawd I love that album.
And if I hadn't listened to Siamese Dream, which is maybe the one of the most 5 albums on this list (also, Gish better be on this list!), I would probably have ranked this album as a 5. But, I did. So, while I love Dummy and I love Beth Gibbons voice and I love the beats and sounds they generate on this album, it's still no Siamese Dream. So a 4 it gets.
Neneh Cherry
1/5
Oh, fuck no. I can't even give her an extra point for not being Rufus Wainwright or Sad Jitrag (or whatever the fuck that shit-ass band with the Steve McQueen album was called). This album is the 80s dance-pop equivalent of some sad British bastard whinging about the weather or something. Uuuuuggghhhhh.
Dr. Octagon
1/5
Ramones
4/5
I've said before that I think the Ramones are overrated. Listening to this album doesn't change my thinking on this. I mean, I enjoyed this, and I'm giving it a four because punk. Also because short. That last point is important. If you're going to have as many one-note songs as the Ramones put on this album, at least they're blessedly short.
To nitpick for a moment, I think my problem with the Ramones, ultimately, is two-fold. First, I don't much like Joey Ramone's crooning. It's fine when he's up there whining, yelling, sneering, shouting, coughing, whatever. Just don't fucking croon. Second, I don't like the guitars as much as other punk bands. I'm cool with cranking away at one or two chords. It's the lack of pedal work or something (and I say that as a non-guitar understanding punk listener). An excellent example of this nitpick is Havana Affair. Up until the 49th second, the guitar is basic electric flailing, then at 00:49, something changes and guitar is throatier, gnarlier, something. I want more songs like that. GBH wrote whole songs (maybe whole albums) with that sound, and I can listen to GBH all fucking day. The Ramones? Once a year.
Anyway, moan, moan, moan. These guys were punk badasses and I'm giving them a 4 on that basis alone.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Also, since I hit 1 without providing a review, why is Dr. Octagon on this list? I mean, the fact that this musical alter-ego somehow thinks that an gynecologist is the source of soft-core fantasies and, even more fantastically, decides to build their album introduction around such a fantasy, is automatically disqualifying and, at least for ranking purposes, automatically gets a 1 in my book. The beats are okayish, but the rest sux. Fuck that dude.
Mariah Carey
1/5
Sweet fucking jaysus, this is terrible. All the 1s.
Also, this album, in its shitty, but ubiquitous, R&B terrible news makes me think I need to read the book. I mean, why? What justification could the author possibly provide to explain its inclusion? This album really makes me question the utility of this list.
Fatboy Slim
3/5
Well...that was disappointing. This album is certainly a more straightforward dance album than Fatboy Slim's next album, You've Come a Long Way Baby. That latter album, and Dig Your Own Hole by the Chemical Brothers, are great examples of big beat with tons of samples, fillers, compression and other noise-inducing elements to accompany the dance beats. This album has some of that, but not enough to effectively hold my interest across the breadth of the album. Of course, this isn't to say I didn't like it. I did. But, I'm clearly going to have to read the book to help me understand why this was chosen over the next one.
System Of A Down
4/5
I've never listened to a lot of nu metal. Korn was too whiny, Limp Bizkit too meathead and, well, Linkin Park is pretty much just a downtuned Nickelback. With those kinds of fellow travelers, I never really listened to System of a Down. Having done so now, I'm still not really a nu metal fan, but these guys are clearly several steps above their peers (as measured by their ability to appeal to my ossifying ears). The album has some pleasantly noisy songs with lots of heavy riffs and not too much in the way of melodic crap. So, I may have to dive into their discography a bit and see if this is an outlier. Overall, I'd give this a 3.5 and round up to a 4 because Armenian metal.
The Killers
2/5
Meh.
Koffi Olomide
2/5
Have you ever gone to a Thai or Indian place for dinner and they're planning some of the shittiest lounge-style music you've ever heard, but it's in their native language? That's what I felt like when I turned this on. But I didn't have a big plate of Congolese food to console myself with. Sad.
Beatles
3/5
This was...fine. I used to viscerally loathe the Beatles, mostly because I couldn't stand the songs of theirs that I heard played on the radio, most of which I determined were pop dreck. I've moderated a bit in my old age, and now consider them somewhat listenable. I mean, Revolver is a legit great album that I'm pretty sure I awarded a 5. Nonetheless, this is a band I won't typically voluntarily listen to, particularly the first six albums. But, as noted, with age and wisdom (and possibly worse knees), I won't leap to the radio to turn them off. This album definitely falls under the category of "won't play voluntarily/will leave on the radio." I had to take a break mid-listen to play some Caspar Brötzmann, but I was able to go back and finish the task at hand. The title track and You Can't Do That are perhaps the best tracks on here. Overall, this about a 2.5, so I'll round to 3 for the great artwork on the album cover.
Muddy Waters
4/5
I imagine this is one of the albums all those Brits (Page, Clapton, etc.) were listening to back when they were starting rock bands. I can see why they started adopting this kind of blues to their uses. It's great music!
The Young Rascals
3/5
Ryan Adams
3/5
I did not much like this album.
Björk
3/5
Whelp, here we have it: another Bjork album, another chance for me (like Charlie Brown kicking a football) to finally understand and enjoy what Bjork has to offer, and another chance for Bjork (like Lucy, yanking away the football) to deliver yet another disappointing collection of songs involving xylophones, whispering, harps, mewling, synthesizers and assorted lyrical oddities. I remain barely a fan.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
4/5
I really enjoyed this album. In fact, I think I liked this better than any of Janis's later work. I don't know why. Shame that R. Crumb was selected to do the album artwork. I'm very much not a fan. Anyway, I have nothing useful to say other than, I'm giving this a 4.
Pere Ubu
4/5
Oh, man! I've heard of Pere Ubu,but never listened to them, which I'm regretting now. These guys are fantastic! At times, while listening, I was pretty sure Modest Mouse had these guys on repeat when forming their band. This redeems the last few weeks of shit we've been served up.
Tricky
5/5
I bought this album in 1995 just on the power of Tricky's role in Masive Attack and I wasn't disappointed. This was a powerful, alluring album that stood up to innumerable repeat listens. Thirty years later, it still does.
Hugh Masekela
4/5
This was a totally unknown album to me, and I mightily enjoyed it. Having been born in Rochester, NY, to parents who loved jazz, including the flugelhorn-playing Chuck Mangione, it was especially interesting to hear someone else play some fantastic jazz flugelhorn. I don't know enough jazz to speak knowledgably on it, but I thought in listening to this that I heard hints of modal, hard bop and soul jazz. In reading reviews, though, it seems the afficionados call this a groove or soul or Afro-jazz album, and I started to wonder if there's any meaningful distinction between any of these things. So, I went back and listened again, just for fun, and it's just a damn fine album. Definitely adding this to my rotation.
Joy Division
5/5
I love this album. I don't know that there's anything I dislike about it. I could listen to it pretty much every day and I don't think it would grow old. I love the whole package, but Ian Curtis's voice and Bernard Sumner's guitar, I think, really make it for me. Day of the Lords may be one of the greatest songs ever written.
Stevie Wonder
2/5
Ugh. But now I know where Coolio got Gangster's Paradise from, so I got that going for me. 2.
The La's
4/5
This was a nice listen. And now I know who sang There She Goes, which song I did not really "know", but which was instantly familiar when it came on. I wondered about this band, since I knew nothing of them. Sounds like they essentially tanked their prospects by fiddling endlessly with their first album, and then tried a comeback in the aughts and tanked that by fiddling endlessly with whatever they were working on. Bummer. I liked this album enough that I would have loved to hear another (as opposed to an endless collection of outtakes and b-sides). Favorite track was Failure.
Marty Robbins
3/5
The problem I have with Marty Robbins is that he always sounds like he's smiling when he sings. And it's kind of a smarmy smile that doesn't fit with the tone of the lyrics. So, when I listen, I just see this sort of oily 50s era guy farting out these songs. On the other hand, there's some really good songs on here that I like quite a bit. Sooo... 3 stars for me.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Me no like. I got 2 songs in and had to turn it off. I just can't get into Mr. C. I turned on Rhett Miller's new solo album as a palate cleanser, and it is excellent.
Pixies
5/5
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
I guess this was okay. Under Peter's excellent rubric, it earns a 3 because I made it through 5 songs with some level of engagement. But, fuck if Poetic Justice didn't torpedo the heavily listing U.S.S. Everett Tries to Give a Shit. So, yeah, a 3, but heavily caveated....
....unlike Surfer Rosa, which, as per my general dipshittedness, I managed to after-the-fact rate a 5 without providing a review. This album is straight bangers from front to back. How about that guitar sound on Gigantic? How about Kim's surreal tongue music on River Euphrates? How about the barely submerged sexual tension and longing in Black Francis's lyrics in Cactus? This album and Doolittle are the greatest 1-2 combo from any band in the 1980s and maybe from any band ever.
Christine and the Queens
1/5
Oh, fuck me. Really? A 23-song double-LP collection of 80s-esque shitpop sung in French. No fucking way.
Duran Duran
4/5
This was far better than I expected it to be based on my hazy memories of watching Rio and that wolf song on MTV. Sort of new wavy, sort of pop, but nothing too saccharine sounding. Putting this in my rotation.
Lupe Fiasco
4/5
Holy shit, this album is great! I'm pretty sure I've heard the name Lupe Fiasco before, but never heard any of his music. I was not expecting much when I turned it on, and the intro was, I dunno, not that different from other spoken word intros we've heard. First couple songs didn't catch my attention, but then Kick, Push came on and the violins nearly made me turn it off. But then LF starts rapping and he dedicated the song to homies out there grinding and dove into the first rap song I've ever heard about skateboarding. Well, dang. Suddenly, it was 1985 and I was skating around Marietta, Georgia, on my Caballero Dragon with a bunch of fellow punks. We were listening to stuff like Suicidal Tendencies or JFA, but I'd like to think we would have at least appreciated this song. Anyway, after that little trip down memory lane, the album just got stronger. The Instrumental is freaking great. Sunshine came on and I wondered why my CD was skipping, before remembering I was at work listening on Tidal and focused on the music. The zombie (or maybe ghost?) gangster in The Cool was great. Anyway, there's a lot of great stuff on this album. It's somewhere between a 4 amd a 5 for me, but I'm rounding down because, in the very end, I'm a noisy fucking guitar guy and needed more of that.
Cocteau Twins
4/5
I guess Cocteau Twins aren't shoegaze, having predatesd that particular sound by a decade, but you can't have shoegaze without them. And, though I had not listened to this album before, it does seem to represent a sort of shoegaze singularity (at least in some songs). Maybe that's why it's on this list? Or maybe because you can sort of understand what Elizabeth Fraser is singing for the first time ever? I dunno. Anyway, I enjoyed this quite a bit, but not quite to a 5 level.
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
3/5
I know this is a classic, and I know it marks the birth of commercially viable rap, and there's some good songs on here, but no thanks to the R&B. It keeps it at a three, for sure.
The Divine Comedy
3/5
I figured I was going to hate this, given how much I hated the last album proffered for this guy. Color me surprised when the first song drew me in, and I didn't hate the rest. I wouldn't make this a regular listen, but taken with a healthy dose of irony, I didn't find this entirely objectionable.
Snoop Dogg
4/5
I had never listened to this album before. Gin and Juice was everywhere in 1993, of course, and I love the Gourds' version of the song, but that was as far as I'd ever listened to, really, anything by Snoop Dogg. I was surprised just how darn good this is! I mean, the casual misogyny is as troubling here as everywhere else it appears in popular culture, but it's leavened by a heavy dose of hilarity. I sort of think that some of the skits on here are the actually funny, actually effective skits that Dr. Octagon was aiming for and failing to hit. Anyway, great flow, great beats. This is a 4.
Pet Shop Boys
1/5
Gawd this is horrible.
Devendra Banhart
3/5
On an average day, this would probably merit a 2. Freak folk just ain't my jam. But on this auspicious day, after I have suffered through the insufferably Casio-drenched melodic shittery of the PSB, our man Devendra comes as a breath of fresh air. His voice bugs the shit out of me, but the guitar sounds good, I like the bongos or whatever, and the lyrics are passable. I listened all the way through. So, 3 stars it is!
John Grant
5/5
This album was fantastic! I had never heard of this guy, or his band the Czars. I was expecting some kind of baroque pop shite given the album cover, but instead got some kind of singer-songwriter solo work with some beautiful songs and some really amazing lyrics. I could probably listen to Marz everyday for months and months. There's such a weird fucking dichotomy between the just profound longing in the piano and harmonies and the not-quite-nonsense lyrics. And the apparently biographical Jesus Hates Faggots makes me want to find some MAGA chud and break their fucking face. So, another dichotomy between the not-violent song and the emotion it triggered in me. Damn. What a great album.
Hole
4/5
I like their first two albums more; they're louder, more abrasive, etc., but this is an excellent album. I like the hints of jangle pop mixed in withe rest. I like Cortney's vocals. Guitar is excellent.
Adele
3/5
There's probably 2 songs on here I thought were pretty and 2-3 I thought were great. The rest more or less blended together in a forgettable, and skippable, mass. Not really my jam, overall. 2.673 rounds up to a 3.
Goldfrapp
4/5
This wasn't quite John Grant good,but it was nonetheless surprisingly (to me) good. Some of the songs are a tad slick and pop-y for my taste, but there are some excellent songs on here. I'd rank it a 3.8 to 4.2, so going with the 4.
The Prodigy
3/5
I liked this album. I would listen to it again. I like the aggro big beat sound. This sort of fits nicely between Chemical Brothers and early Ministry in my music listening spectrum. I could do without the whole misogynistic sounding Smack song. Overall, it's about a solid 3.5, but rounding down for various arbitrary reasons I can't really articulate.
Tom Waits
3/5
I listened to the whole thing to see if I like Tom Waits any more than I did when this came out. I do not. Percussion on this is interesting, melodies (such as they are) are okay, lyrics I cannot make out for the most part, and thus the sum of the parts leaves me wanting.
Soft Machine
2/5
The first four minutes of freeform, electronic noise-noodling made me want to toss my phone off the roof of my office. The subsequent 71 minutes and 19 seconds sort of assuaged that feeling, but it never really went away. I just don't think I'm a fan of noise-free jazz-psych or whatever this is. If I'm going to listen to noise, I want it to be brutal, loud and cathartic (i.e., early Swans). If I'm going to listen to free jazz, I want saxophones motherfucker (a la Ornette Coleman), not Keith Emerson noodling on an early Casio with a butterknife. And, if I'm going to listen to psych, well then goddam it, it better have some droning guitars at a minimum. So yeah, I didn't find this music challenging or enjoyable or groundbreaking, I just found it annoying.
The White Stripes
4/5
I like most everything the White Stripes did, and most everything JW has done solo, but some of it is weaker than others. I'd lump this under the weaker side of his work. I think that opinion is mostly a testament to my personal limitations as a music listener rather than to the White Stripes' work. I'd rank this a 3.6, so rounding up to a 4.
Iggy Pop
4/5
This album sounds fast more modern than it is. Maybe it's the vocals? I spent more time wondering what microphone Iggy was using than I have ever spent thinking about microphones before. Also, he's got some weird fucking lyrics in here. I prefer the Stooges, but this is excellent, too.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
2/5
I'm sure fans of Manfred Mann find this engaging. I do not.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
This was fine: a couple good songs peppered in among many sleep-inducing tracks of Mick Jagger trying to sound like a founding member of the Soggy Bottom Boys. Not my jam, really, but at least it's not lush, orchestral pop!
5/5
Hot damn! Now this is the kind of noise that makes me want to get up in the morning. I saw these guys open for Sonic Youth at the Recher Theater in Baltimore in 2002 and it was clear that these guys were up to the task of making as mighty a clamor as their avant-garde hipster elders. I haven't listened to them much in the intervening decades, but clearly that was a bad choice. I listened to this album three times yesterday and loved it every time.
Standout songs include Broken Witch, We Fenced Other Gardens With The Bones Of Our Own, and Hold Hands And It Will Happen Anyway.
Todd Rundgren
2/5
Oh, fuck me. 90 minutes of 70s easy listening pablum? No thanks. I jumped around a bit to try different songs and they all sucked hairy coconuts.
The Streets
2/5
So. Boring.
So much talking in monotone.
So much hitting a snare drum button on a Casio.
So much me not giving a living shit about whatever is being said.
WTF is wrong with the Brits who made this a hit?
Why did I listen to this today?
So. Boring.
The Louvin Brothers
2/5
I found this almost unbearable. Went and listened to Jane Antonio Cornish for some relief for my earholes.
Elton John
2/5
First song nearly sent me over the edge.
Second song was okayish. Slow fucking start, but then it got vaguely interesting. Guitar part made me angry. I eventually hit skip.
Third song is weird. Some kind of fake live track? I dunno. Skipped it after 45 seconds.
Fourth song I liked pretty well. The whole woo-woo bit sounds nice. I think I must be in a pissy mood, though, I only made it to 90 seconds.
Fifth song is a big no. Stupid title, stupid flute, stupid piano.
Sixth song was promising until he opened his yap.
I give up...
Measured with the "How many stars better than Rufus Wainwright is this?", I came up 1 star better. Thus, Sir Elton John gets a 2.
The War On Drugs
3/5
Glenn Frey called (from the great beyond); he wants his album back. Was going to give this a 2, but then I thought about the baritone sax on Red Eye and decided I should rethink this. I almost gave it a 4! But then "An Ocean In Between the Waves" came on, and I remembered how much I dislike Glenn Frey and wondered why a band would spend so much time trying to sound like him. Then I got sleepy. Then I decided to give this a solid 3. Middle of the pack band, middle of the pack sound, middle of the pack ranking.
Buena Vista Social Club
5/5
This was more or less the soundtrack to my life in Austin, TX, back in 1997-1998. Saturday mornings spent slow rolling with lots of french press coffee and hard rolls from Texas French Bread down on Guadalupe, warm breezes through the windows, and this playing on the legit hi-fi system. Damn that was some good living. Soooo, it's really hard for me to separate my current enjoyment of this album from the memory of me enjoying it. That it mostly holds up in the context of me sitting in my federal office working on crappy legal stuff means it's a damn good album. So good, in fact, that I'm going to rank it a 5.