Music for people who list DIY in their hobbies.

Some albums are so good they change your taste in music. Some albums are so good you remember where you were when you first heard them. (The good old days the good old days) Some albums are so good that, the world around you disappears and it feels like you’re in a movie. Some reviews are so cringeworthy and full of hyperbole that you wish you’d just written “5 Stars”.

You know how every Beatles album has some stupid songs but you forgive them because there’s also a stack of genuine masterpieces there…. Take the White Album… 6 stupid tracks (Wild Honey Pie anyone?), 24 bangers. Every Queen album does that too. The difference is that their ratio is 50:50. For every Bohemian Rhapsody you have ‘I’m in love with my car’ I’m going to average it out and give half marks.

What in the smokemachinehairspraypowerstance-hell is this album doing on this list. Get in the bin.

This is cool. Who knew Pixies 3rd best album isn’t even by Pixies

Funky. Enjoyed revisiting this after not hearing it for over a decade. Didn’t need to be so long

Easy to see why this is a classic. I’m not personally into the whole glam/classic rock thing but this is undeniably catchy

Dull

Some albums are so good they change your taste in music. Some albums are so good you remember where you were when you first heard them. (The good old days the good old days) Some albums are so good that, the world around you disappears and it feels like you’re in a movie. Some reviews are so cringeworthy and full of hyperbole that you wish you’d just written “5 Stars”.

5 reasons I dislike Morrissey: - That silly ‘oooo I’m a spooky Ghoul’ howl he occasionally does - That even more silly Cookie Monster voice he does - The fact he is capable of writing amazing lyrics but occasionally ruins some of Marr’s best work with nonsense like ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ (or ‘Some Girls are Bigger Than Others’ etc etc) -His god awful political opinions -Just his overall personality. Thankfully not even Morrissey can stop this album being great.

Good songs individually but the vocal delivery and production style mean trying to listen to this in one sitting is akin to chugging a 2 litre bottle of Coke.

Me: “eurgh this is all so very cabaret” Also me: “she’s a killer queeeeeeen”

Why did no one tell me Rush was Led Zeppelin with jet packs… but like not quite as good some how

I think I watched these at a school battle of the bands once. Of all the albums i've ever heard this is definitely one of them.

Enjoyed this but no reason for it to be 56 minutes. Remove a bunch of the ‘inserts’ and the weak tracks on the 2nd half and this would gain a star.

A personal favourite. Best paired with a dark room, a 3rd glass of your chosen spirit and sense of fear & dread having watched the 10 o’clock news.

Bowie x Eno x Fripp. Perfection

The only redeeming feature of this album is the artwork which clearly depicts my face when someone adds spoken word excerpts about nuclear war to hotel elevator muzak.

I’m confused. I spent the last 20 years thinking I hate prog. Now I apparently like Rush and Yes? The first 4 minutes is like a terrible fever dream but enjoyed everything after that

One of the best bands in the world with a collection of some of their best songs (and a couple of less good ones) Deducting one star just because it’s not quite the cohesive masterpiece of OK Computer, Kid A or In Rainbows. Still incredible.

28 minutes means you can listen to it twice. I did and enjoyed it both times.

Pairing notes: beanbag, winter sweater, ability to zone out and do fuck all for an hour. Enjoyed it but took a couple of listens to appreciate

Didn’t want to give instant 5 stars because it’s Bob. Don’t think twice… it’s alright.

You know how every Beatles album has some stupid songs but you forgive them because there’s also a stack of genuine masterpieces there…. Take the White Album… 6 stupid tracks (Wild Honey Pie anyone?), 24 bangers. Every Queen album does that too. The difference is that their ratio is 50:50. For every Bohemian Rhapsody you have ‘I’m in love with my car’ I’m going to average it out and give half marks.

Ordered this Elliott Smith album from Temu. Decent quality for the money but will buy from a reputable record store next time (I actually quite enjoyed this)

Never even heard of The Saints. Fun little punk album. I liked it.

The generator gave me this album on a very glum and rainy Monday morning in the UK. Put this on at 7am. By 9am I was on a Teams call wearing a denim jacket and bandana, drinking a Budweiser and preaching to colleagues about the 2nd amendment.

Listened to this twice all the way through. First was the original 1987 release. I honestly thought it was a set of good songs completely ruined by the overly compressed outdated production. Second time was the 2020 remaster which thankfully fixes these issues and brings some dynamics and space to breathe.

You know that song we did earlier… do it again but this time set the synth to the ‘trumpet’ setting,

A pleasant listen but not an interesting one. Sounds like if James Bond was on hold to IT.

Why release one incredible album when you can release two. Abattoir Blues - Intense Lyre of Orpheus - Reflective & melodic. I can’t even pick a favourite

I ignored Amy Winehouse in the 00s. I thought I was edgy and she was too ubiquitous to be cool. I’ve since come to really like Back to Black…the production, the hooks, the sadness in the lyrics, the vocal delivery, that 60s R&B aesthetic. Frank doesn’t have any of the things I like in B2B. Poor lyrics set to a jazz thing which doesn’t quite play to her strengths. meandering and forgettable…

What in the smokemachinehairspraypowerstance-hell is this album doing on this list. Get in the bin.

Also included in my upcoming book ‘1 album to hear before you die’

I love Pixies. Not sure you could class this as ‘an album you must hear before you die’ when Surfer Rosa, Doolittle and Bossanova exist. A couple of songs like Abstract Plain and Headache are Pixies standard songs but there’s definitely a fair bit of filler here. With a bit of quality control this could have been a great 13-song album instead of a middling 22-song one

Track 1 - Super Furry Animals B-side Track 2 - Toddler goes nuts on GarageBand Track 3 - Don’t let a lack of melody, structure or timing get in the way of making songs. Why does this sound like Brian Eno?? Track 4 - Syd Barrat has a psychotic episode while a cat sits on a synth Track 5 - Another Super Furry Animals B-side Track 6 - Big Band Jazz ensemble do ketamine. Track should have been titled ‘Regretamine’ Track 7 - A wild Brian Eno appears...Again. (Edit: oh shit this was meant to be a joke but turns out it is actually Eno.) Track 8 - Fell ashleep to this one. Track 9 - Still shleeping Track 10 - Woke up to a knees up cockney version of Bob Dylan. Very confused had to check I hadn’t accidentally pressed shuffle Track 11 - Trumpets in a haunted crypt Tl;dr - This was fucking weird.

I bought NME religiously from 2002-2005. Every week another must-hear indie guitar band was on the cover… The Strokes, Libertines, The Hives, The Vines, White Stripes, Interpol, Muse, The Coral, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, King of Leon, Franz Ferdinand, Kasabian, Bloc Party… Arctic Monkeys were the top of the rollercoaster just before the decline towards landfill indie …Fratellis, Pigeon Detectives, Wombats, Scouting for Girls, The Kooks Jesus Christ did it fall off quickly. I wasn’t sure which side of the line this album would fall 20 years on since I first heard it. Glad to say it still holds up.

At last… music for the masses to enjoy. Can’t wait to bang this on at the work Christmas do and see my colleagues’ smiling faces.

The reason I love Pink Floyd is that they didn’t do anything by halves. Feeling jaded and like an industry pawn? Write an entire concept album about it. Want to include a tribute to your old band mate? Make it 25 minutes long, bookend the album with it and make it the best goddamn song ever written. Need album art to match the theme? Set a dude on fire. Brilliant.

Surgeon’s son New Yorker cosplays as a cowboy. Imagine Bob Dylan didn’t bother with politics, poetry and storytelling and instead sang songs about bed bugs and weevils. The cocaine song had something to it. Sounds like it should be over the closing credits of a Coen brothers movie. The rest was unbearable.

[long-time Neil Young fanboy perspective] Thank you generator! Not my absolute favourite but this is gateway Neil where my addiction began. There’s so much to like here. ‘Think I’ll pack it in and buy a pick-up.’ Really sets the tone. Ben Keith’s pedal steel. Heart of Gold and Old Man are earworms (even my 3 year old sings along to those) Alabama. You can actually hear the barn where it was recorded. Side note: Google the ‘Needs More Barn!’ story with Graham Nash if you don’t know it. The transition between ‘The Needle & The Damage Done’ into ‘Words’. The usual criticism against this album is Young’s most misunderstood song ‘A Man Needs A Maid’. Often written off as sexist when the real meaning is condemning one-sided relationships. It only made sense to me when I heard the 1971 Massey Hall version, stripped of the orchestra. With the lyric variation ‘a man feels afraid’ and a bridge that would later become Heart of Gold. These songs make much more sense considered together ‘To give a love, you gotta live a love / To live a love, you gotta be "part of” / … I wanna live, I wanna give… / when will I see you again’.

Music for people who list DIY in their hobbies.

2nd album by CCR and have enjoyed them both. Marking this one down slightly (vs Green River) because i could have done without 25% of the album being taken up with ‘Graveyard Train’ plodding along but getting nowhere. Liked the other 6 songs. Can see myself coming back to this.

This was fun. Very melodic. I prefer the more laid back stuff like Kind of Blue and In A Silent Way

Can’t believe a clothes brand made such a good album

This came out 32 years ago. I haven’t heard it in 20 years. Somehow makes more sense in 2025 with Soccer Mommy, boygenius, Snail Mail, Wednesday etc.

Crazy, messy, imperfect, fun.

CSN-Y. Like if Beatles made an album without John Lennon. Still Great.

I once accidentally saw the Killers live when they appeared unannounced for a ‘secret set’ on a smaller stage at Glastonbury They played the first 5 songs from this album. Everyone danced and sang along. Then they fucked off. I wish they did the same in the studio because the second half of this album is absolute shite.

Kept my interest throughout but wasn’t as instantly rewarding as any Talking Heads or solo Eno records I’ve heard. Definitely worthy of further listening.

I quite liked this album but not as much as I’d like justice for Portishead. 2007 Interview excerpt from Mark Saunders who produced this record: "Tricky entered the studio with 'a great idea for a loop', incorporating samples from Isaac Hayes' 'Ike's Rap II'. We did the whole track ('Hell Is Around The Corner') and Tricky then did his usual thing, calling the manager and telling her, 'This is fantastic! You've got to come and listen to the next single!' At that time we were working at my own Loveshack studio, and the manager was just up the road, so she came in and she stood in the doorway as he played it to her, and I saw her jaw drop. She said, 'Tricky, I can't believe you did that.' Tricky went, 'What? What are you talking about?' I could see he was starting to smirk, he knew what she was talking about. She said, 'You know Portishead have used this,' and he said, 'No, I had no idea!' He was laughing, and it turned out that she'd given him a cassette of some rough mixes off the Portishead album.” (Why is this on the 1001 albums list over Mezzanine?)

Sixteen Saltines is awesome. Not much else worth coming back to for me. I don’t hate this album I just think it doesn’t belong anywhere near a ‘must hear’ list. By comparison, White Blood Cells and Elephant definitely do. Hoping Jack’s latest ‘No Name’ album also makes the next edition of this book. Just about every track on that one is better than anything here.

I’ve never really ‘got’ James Brown but this album really captures the live energy well.

Pre-streaming days, I downloaded the entire Bunnymen discography. Think I listened through exactly once then decided Ocean Rain was the one, bought that on CD and deleted the rest. For some reason I never bothered going back to the others so glad this came up. This was good. Definitely still not /as/ good as Ocean Rain though.

Not really fair to assess this one since decent music wasn’t invented til 1959.

The thing I loved about White Stripes was how much they pissed off the Metalheads in school: ‘jAcK cAnT sInG’ ‘iTs JuSt TeH pEnTaToNiC sCaLe’ ‘mEg CaNt EvEn PlAy TeH dRuMs’ ‘tHeY dOnT eVeN hAvE a BaSsIsT lMaO’ All these things are true. It doesn’t stop them being the ultimate ‘better-than-the-sum-of-their-parts’ band. So STFU and go back to listening to dragonforce and wanking over orcs, Dan.

First impressions when today’s pick appeared: Seriously? the uptown girl guy?… bleurghhhhh After listening: why have I slept on this?? Just great McCartney-esque pop songs. It isn’t cool in any way but this is now my go to answer for ‘guilty pleasure’. Really enjoyed every song here. Highlights Scenes from an Italian restaurant, Vienna