1001 Albums Summary

Ol’ divisive Tom Waits! I get it…his voice evolved into a Marlboro rippin’ Cookie Monster(I like his voice outside of his 3rd and 4th albums). The time of day you listen to Tom Waits really changes how his albums hit you. Every one needs to be at night time or early morning, the exact time frame his music evokes. He is a master of setting mood. I enjoy all of his albums at varying degrees and feel this is one of his misses due to its spoken word slower tempo. However, the first time I listened to this album was in the fall at around 5 in the morning…I enjoyed it then. Today it was 65 and sunny at 5 AM and the album did not fit the mood. So, to be fair, I’m giving this album a 3 because it has the typical moments of Tom Waits’ greatness on display but can also be a real drag of an album with the subtle, continual jazz behind a grating voice. Parts of this album really feel disingenuous to me, as well, where Waits’ voice borders too much on characterization. For those who rated this 1 star or have given up on Tom Waits as a whole, I suggest you listen to his first album “Closing Time.” It is one of my favorite albums ever, taking me by surprise as I thought the Waits you hear on “Nighthawks” was always that way. Instead you get a calming set of finely crafted singer-songwriter-like tunes that evoke similar feelings of early Springsteen.

Possibly the hardest album to enter with an unbiased viewpoint on the list. I did my best to tell myself I was listening to an R&B album by an artist I’d never heard of, but that only works so well. These songs are classics for a reason any way you cut it. Is it songwriting on the level of more rock adjacent albums? No, but I’ve always respected those who can create such timeless, catchy, infectious melodies. Personally, I always preferred MJ’s next two albums when songs like “Dirty Diana” and “Give In To Me” showed a rawer side. Still, this gets four stars from me. There is some inexcusable 80s cheese here and Sir Paul makes a bad song terrible on “The Girl is Mine.”

I am a Johnny Cash fan but have never seen the appeal of the live prison albums. They mostly showcase Cash’s attitude and persona more than the music. Nothing too special here really except two takes at San Quentin and thirty seconds of Folsom Prison Blues.

McCartney’s flaw as a songwriter is that his work comes off schmaltzy and impersonal. Such a catalog, yet I feel like we don’t know anything about him learned through his music. The same Paul is here on Band on the Run, his best work after the Beatles. Some moments of pop music mastery and some real dull cheese. That was always McCartney, though.

A near perfect punk offering that carries attitude and melody in parts. The whole album blends together leaving no individual memorable track but that isn’t atypical for punk. This is a classic for a reason.

Beautifully executed chamber pop anchored by a unique voice. I have heard Anohni’s music sporadically and remember this album making a small splash back in its release time but never gave it the listen it deserved. Anohni’s real talent is using her voice to make you feel emotions you never you would by vocals alone. An album that falls into the “great but may not listen again” category. It can be a little too morose for repeated listens but the two listens I did give it are worth four stars.

A nice mix of dream pop and R&B. I liked this more than I expected but will probably not revisit much.

For the topic that the record was covering, it just felt uninspired. Most of the album had the underlying feeling of someone in their late 50s figuring out how GarageBand works and quickly churning out a cheesy mess of sounds that they thought would change the world. I picture a group on public access TV embarrassingly pressing buttons to play the same beat over and over and over with soft voiced narration of cliched Black power lines that have been repeated in poetry for over a century. This unfortunately feels like a group taking advantage of a movement in time, not contributing anything meaningful to it. Repetitive, cliched, and boring. One of the few albums on the list that I turned tracks on after 45-60 seconds due to said boring repetition. Last five songs are where it started to pick up but could not save the album. I listened to some of the groups other music and liked it though.

Obviously the vocal harmonies are amazing. Sometimes they are so crisp and dead on that it feels manufactured rather than coming from three vocalists, taking away any raw emotion. That being said, this album has some great moments but becomes boring in others. Acoustic, folky, singer-songwriter stuff has the tendency to do that in my opinion. Overall, three stars because nothing stands out other than the classic “Suite:Judy Blue Eyes.” I will probably return to this album for a couple of tunes but it wouldn’t go heavy rotation.

I revisit Coltrane albums every year, especially this one and Blue Train. They are masterful works that showcase talent at a higher level than most of this list. I respect jazz incredibly and after listening to a decent amount of it, I can say that a lot of it sounds the same. It is difficult for jazz music to stand out but Coltrane always has to me.

I will never understand the appeal of the Beach Boys or how they are ever in the discussion of being the best American band ever. They made campy surf rock then pivoted to cheesy pop that sounded like it belonged on the oldies station immediately upon release. After Pet Sounds they made disjointed attempts to latch on to whatever the sound of the season was for Friends and Surf’s Up. Pet Sounds has some moments of harmonious bliss and small snippets where the music veered into interesting, but it swerves back into boring quickly. The songwriting is often lauded as remarkable here but I find it embarrassingly childlike lyrically. The multiple layers of sound end up flattening the tracks. Less could have definitely been more here.