My 1001 Albums Journey

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3.89

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1013 albums remaining

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1980s

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) Eurythmics	5	3.24	+1.76
The Message Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five	5	3.28	+1.72
Daydream Nation Sonic Youth	5	3.3	+1.7
The Downward Spiral Nine Inch Nails	5	3.35	+1.65
Garbage Garbage	5	3.38	+1.62
Stardust Willie Nelson	5	3.4	+1.6
Hot Buttered Soul Isaac Hayes	5	3.43	+1.57
All Directions The Temptations	5	3.45	+1.55
Odelay Beck	5	3.46	+1.54
James Brown Live At The Apollo James Brown	5	3.46	+1.54

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Play Moby	2	3.47	-1.47
Tusk Fleetwood Mac	2	3.46	-1.46
Third Soft Machine	1	2.43	-1.43
Melodrama Lorde	2	3.32	-1.32
The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones	2	3.25	-1.25

Artists

Favorites

Artist	Albums	Average
Stevie Wonder	2	5

5-Star Albums (23)

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Popular Reviews

The Joshua Tree

5/5

I was prepared to be hard on this album. I was expecting the songs to be trite and cliche in hindsight. Instead I got a soaring, gliding, elegant album. Listening after a massive break from U2's music. This is better than I remembered.

2 likes

Odelay

Beck

5/5

My album before this was 'Play' by Moby. For two artists so superficially similar, these albums could not be more different. Where 'Play' was very "meh", 'Odelay' really holds up and soars. This is an absurdly fun album. It is experimental, playful, absurd, and almost poking fun at itself - but it does so with so much conviction and intention to pass through the realm of being a joke, to coming full circle to being serious art. It includes intentionally absurd samples, nonsense lyrics, or jarring and dissonant instrumentals - but it knows exactly what it is doing throwing them in.

1 likes

1-Star Albums (1)

All Ratings

The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

3/5

Stardust

Willie Nelson

5/5

Already know and love this album. Have it on LP. So fabulous.

Tusk

Fleetwood Mac

2/5

It's... fine. Nothing special to really recommend it. There is no reason for this to be on a list of "must listen" albums. It's fine. It's a solid folk-rock album. But there's nothing special about it. It came out in 1979. It has some good songs, but doesn't pioneer, experiment, fuse, or perfect anything. Everything it does well has already been done better by earlier albums.

Neon Bible

Arcade Fire

4/5

I really liked this. Didn't have enough chance to listen to it through closely to fully form an opinion, but I want to give it a closer listen. I did enjoy that it's a concept album. Musical variety and production quality were great. Didn't immediately jump out as something obviously super special. But very good.

Back At The Chicken Shack

Jimmy Smith

4/5

Great album by one of my favorite artists. Will listen again. Would enjoy owning. Some fantastic but approachable soul-jazz.

Deja Vu

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

4/5

Good stuff. Will listen again.

The Stranger

Billy Joel

4/5

Mothership Connection

Parliament

5/5

Funk yeah! Great piece of art. Great musicianship. Great arrangement. Solid production. Enjoyable to listen to, while also being hugely musically and culturally influential.

Everything Must Go

Manic Street Preachers

4/5

This was really great. I need time to sit down and listen to it more closely.

Music From Big Pink

The Band

4/5

Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth

5/5

Ten

Pearl Jam

4/5

...The Dandy Warhols Come Down

The Dandy Warhols

3/5

Green

R.E.M.

4/5

Great album. Solid alternative rock classic.

A Love Supreme

John Coltrane

4/5

Fabulous jazz classic. Probably not for people who aren't already into jazz. It is almost ecstatic and impressionistic at times. Going off into near pure emotion. Masterful artists walking the very edge of spinning out of control.

Fromohio

fIREHOSE

4/5

This was surprisingly enjoyable. Lots of energy. Crazy good bassline. Raw punk energy.

Floodland

Sisters Of Mercy

3/5

This was surprisingly enjoyable. Lots of energy. Crazy good bassline. Raw punk energy.

Young Americans

David Bowie

3/5

It's Bowie. It's good. But not his best. Neither as experimental, or conceptual, or peak poppy as his other albums.

Hot Buttered Soul

Isaac Hayes

5/5

So hot. This album is fantastic, start to finish. "Walk On By" is possibly one of the greatest popular songs ever recorded. I've heard this called "Progressive Soul". I think that might be labeling it wrong. This arguably predates Progressive Rock. It's clearly doing it's own thing, too. And I think drawing from vastly divergent influences. It is sweeping and epic.

Parklife

Blur

3/5

Solid. Fun.

The Message

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

5/5

This is everything good about early hip hop. If you went out to a street corner in New York, put down a boom box, and slapped "play" on a cassette of this, you would still have a party. Slap down some cardboard, and someone would randomly start break dancing. One song is a ballad where five grown, straight, men sing a love letter to Stevie Wonder because, "He's the greatest." 10/10. No notes.

Deserter's Songs

Mercury Rev

3/5

Abraxas

Santana

4/5

Great album. Mix of latin, jazz, psychedluc rock. It is expansive and full of passion. The sort of exploration where you can imagine musical rituals taking casting magicspells and transporting your consciousness. 4.5 stars

The Clash

3/5

Solid punk. Not their best album.

A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield

3/5

Solid and enjoyable Blue-Eyed-Soul. It's good stuff, but I don't think blazes many trails.

Alien Lanes

Guided By Voices

2/5

It sounds like a demo tape. The recording is too muddy and incomprehensible to really speak to the quality of musicianship.

At Budokan

Cheap Trick

4/5

Great live album. One of the few cases where the live recordings surpass the studio ones as the definitive versions of the songs.

Pretzel Logic

Steely Dan

4/5

Great album. Love it. My favorite Steely Dan, but not their best. Has some "meh" songs (Garrytown, and Through with Buzz). Not their finest work

Ágætis Byrjun

Sigur Rós

4/5

Very nice. 3 or 4. Reminds me of Radiohead or Massive Attack, but with lush strings and wind instruments.

Time Out

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

5/5

Live / Dead

Grateful Dead

3/5

Just sort of rambles. I get that that's the point, and it's exploring. But like... it's like watered down jazz.

Blood On The Tracks

Bob Dylan

3/5

Dylan was/is very influential, but I don't care for most of his work. He opened a path, but I think he was surpassed by many other artist. Even among contemporaries, Paul Simon and Townes Van Zandt are better.

Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Wu-Tang Clan

5/5

Seminal. Masterful.

At Newport 1960

Muddy Waters

5/5

This is The Blues.

Killing Joke

4/5

Paul's Boutique

Beastie Boys

5/5

Third

Soft Machine

1/5

Nearly unlistenable. First track was just noise. I sat with it for a while thinking it was maybe a "Close to the Edge" type of intro, but no. Just noise. Later tracks the audio quality was so distorted to be unpleasant.

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Pink Floyd

5/5

Bryter Layter

Nick Drake

4/5

Play

Moby

2/5

Does not hold up. (Wasn't sure on 2 or 3 stars. I'll say 2.5) This certainly did a lot to bring EDM into the mainstream, but is honestly very lackluster. Today, the songs sound like someone who has finally learned how to use Garage Band. They're decent, but kind of bland. Even in it's day, it falls well behind the quality of other contemporary or even preceding music. There is nothing this does that wasn't already being done better by other artists. At same time, other artists were working in the same or adjacent genres and truly pioneering new ground.

Something Else By The Kinks

The Kinks

3/5

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Arctic Monkeys

4/5

At first I thought it was... fine. Sort of whatever. But it grew on me. It has an energy that their later music lacks. But with good playing. I found myself listening again.

Odelay

Beck

5/5

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Eurythmics

5/5

Microshift

Hookworms

3/5

Connected

Stereo MC's

4/5

Good 90's Brit-hop. A bit trite, but good at what it is. If this is your sort of thing it will give happy feels, but not exceptional. If this isn't your thing, it is very "meh". The title track "Connected" is a certified banger though.

Superfly

Curtis Mayfield

5/5

Catch A Fire

Bob Marley & The Wailers

5/5

Strange Cargo III

William Orbit

4/5

Garbage

5/5

Headquarters

The Monkees

4/5

I was fully prepared to be bored with this as trite boy-band schlock. I enjoyed it more than I expected to. It's a bit dated and not edgy at all, but... I'm impressed that THIS is what a corporately manufactured boy band used to sound like. Real singing. Real instruments. DIFFERENT instruments. Like harpsichord an banjo?!? WTF? "Zilch" is fun and absurd and actually experimental. It's incredibly playful and listening to it was just... joyful. Still not quite my thing. But I went from rolling my eyes to happily listening through the whole album.

Innervisions

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Hybrid Theory

Linkin Park

3/5

I wanted to hate this more than I do. Definitely not going to keep listening, but I can't bring myself to hate it. It's competently done. The mixing is surprisingly energetic and organic after being so used to mainstream music being pitch-corrected and quantized to death. I can very easily see why this was so popular and influential. But in the end... It's kinda schlocky and trite white middle-class rebellion.

Soul Mining

The The

3/5

For Your Pleasure

Roxy Music

3/5

Document

R.E.M.

4/5

The Joshua Tree

5/5

Darklands

The Jesus And Mary Chain

3/5

Brothers In Arms

Dire Straits

4/5

Remember when MTV used to play music videos? Those were great times... 4.5/5 stars. (really 6/7) This one is a bit tough to rate. The first 3 songs "So Far Away From Me", "Money for Nothing", and "Walk of Life" are 5/5 easy. "Money for Nothing" is one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time. Find the best guitarist you know, and watch how fast they would "nope" out of being challenged to play it. The rest of the album after it is great, but doesn't rise to the level of those first three songs. I'd tell anyone to listen to those first three (with caveat to younger people about how much culture has changed since "Money for Nothing" was recorded), but the rest of the album isn't going to excite everyone.

Talking Book

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Electric Warrior

T. Rex

4/5

All Directions

The Temptations

5/5

Stank face out the gate.

LP1

FKA twigs

4/5

Pelican West

Haircut 100

4/5

Enjoyable New Wave.

Harvest

Neil Young

5/5

Another album I was prepared to roll my eyes at being over-hyped boomer-bait, but I think it lives up to its reputation. Not an album for everyone. I will probably not return to this often, but an album that is truly worth listening to for every music fan.

Pink Moon

Nick Drake

5/5

A beautiful work of elegant simplicity. Spare and personal, often just one voice and one guitar. The minimalism is personal. It is perfect in its raw imperfection.

The Downward Spiral

Nine Inch Nails

5/5

Melodrama

Lorde

2/5

The overproduction on this killed it for me. She's got a great voice. Just let me hear what it actually sounds like. Yeah, I'm an older generation than this is meant for, but I don't think that was the issue. I actually think there were some good songs underneath and some heartfelt lyrics... but the over-processing of her voice blanketed over the humanity. Not in an artistic way of adding distortion to make a statement of pain or dehumanization or anything, because that's not what the songs were about and it was the same effects on every song. Tough to rate. I think it's better than a 2, but I feel like a 3 may be overly generous. 2.5 maybe.

Stand!

Sly & The Family Stone

4/5

It has some fantastic and iconic songs, but I think it is just "meh" as an album. The lesser songs drag things down. I was set to rate this a 3 until I got to "Everyday People". From there on, it hits a better stride. But still not great. 3.7

Dusty In Memphis

Dusty Springfield

4/5

Classic blue-eyed soul. Rich orchestration. Some fantastic tracks.

The Rolling Stones

2/5

Ugh. This is basically a bunch of covers of blues and rock and roll songs by black American artists. But nowhere near matches the quality of the original versions of these songs. The only reason it's on here is because iT's ThE rOlLiNg StOnEs!!1! Yes. They did great albums throughout their career, but this is NOT one of them. This album is not worth a listen, unless you're listening to this to be reminded how unfair the music industry has been to black musicians.

James Brown Live At The Apollo

James Brown

5/5

Good god yall!

Step In The Arena

Gang Starr

3/5

Competent, but not impressive. I'm only passingly familiar with hip-hop, but this sounds like a stepping-stone album that maybe laid the groundworker for future masterpieces, but is not a masterpiece itself. It reminded me a bit of Wu-Tang and Tribe Called quests. But this came out in '91, whereas 'Midnight Marauder' and 'Enter the 36 Chambers' both came out in '93. So it may have been a strong influence on some of the greatest hip hop of the 90's (or all time). But was nowhere close to perfecting what it was doing the way those other artists and albums were.

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

4/5

Fleet Foxes

3/5

Hot Fuss

The Killers

4/5

Wow. This album is banger after banger. Is this a guilty pleasure album? Possibly. I want to be harder on it, rate it lower for being schlock or something. It's not a grand political statement, sweeping concept epic, or pioneering of anything new. It's just really good rock and roll for the 2000's. Can't quite bring myself to give it a full 5-stars, but it is easily 4+. 4.5/5