Didn’t hate it. Slick sound verging on sterile. Tracks blend into one another with little variation. Fagen’s voice is pretty weak and irritatingly nasal. Anodyne background music that never really engages on a deeper level. Music that arrives dressed in shoulder pads and a pair of aviator shades.

I don’t feel in any way qualified to pass comment on a hip-hop album but, based on sheer enjoyment, this is a definite yes from me. Plebty of genre hopping and variety to keep things interesting. Would I revisit it? Probably not, mainly due to feeling slightly uncomfortable as a middle-aged white guy with quite so many ‘n-words’, as well as a whiff of misogyny in some of the lyrics.

I don’t usually count live albums and proper albums but I’ll let this one slide. Sonically a little one dimensional due to sparse instrumentation but Cash’s charisma and storytelling carry it.

As mentioned previously, I don’t really ‘get’ live albums and this does nothing to change my mind. A thirty-seconds-long drum solo is more than enough but eight minutes? Nope! The kind of music that seems a lot more fun for the people on stage than for anyone forced to endure it who isn’t stoned out of their tree. Spinal Tap, except they’re not taking the piss.

It’s almost better to approach this one by disregarding the title track due to its sheer overbearing ubiquity and judge it on the remaining nine. There are at least two other bona fide Lennon classics (Jealous Guy & Gimme Some Truth) and one of the more obvious ‘diss tracks’ aimed at Paul (How Do You Sleep). The rest is pleasant enough, if a little lightweight and lyrically saccharine at times.

Putting the iffy 80s production to one side, this was really quite enjoyable. Its subtlety invites and rewards repeated listening. You can also hear where subsequent female artists maybe took some of their inspiration from.

I’m a day behind and really tried to catch up with this one, but am ashamed to admit that I threw in the towel by the fifteenth track. It’s brimming with ideas, and there are some truly lovely moments, but, just as a single fondant fancy is delicious, I don’t want to eat 22 of them.

Again, I don’t feel at all qualified to offer any meaningful critique. My feeling toward this album is the definition of ambivalence. It exists. I neither like it nor dislike it.

A favourite festival memory is of seeing Jon Spencer at Reading ‘99 with zero prior knowledge of his work. In a live setting, those chaotic, primal elements work fine. On record, however, the chewing gum loses its flavour after a few tracks as it just doesn’t really have enough there to really connect with beyond the noise.

Again, I am hopelessly under qualified to give an informed critique. I’m going on pure enjoyment and the album’s wider cultural significance beyond its intended audience. It’s possibly the fist album I have listened to so far on this list that has made me want to press play again immediately upon finishing.

It’s hard to argue with some of the hooks, and there’s some nice bass work on display, but the lyrics are almost uniformly awful and I’m just not sure there’s enough substance there to sustain even a fairly short album. There’s probably a reason ABBA’s biggest seller is their greatest hits.

It’s difficile to try and be objective with this one but, as debut albums go, it’s pretty much a perfect distillation of what SFA are/were. It doesn’t get a five, as I feel they actually surpassed this on later albums.

This is something I would ordinarily have regarded as ‘music for people much cooler/cleverer than me’ and moved swiftly on, but this was genuinely fantastic. Surprising, affecting, funky and moody in equal measure.

A couple of listens through have brought me to the conclusion that TWS essentially have thee or four songs, and the bulk of their catalogue seems to be made up of variations of these. Thankfully these three or four songs are pretty good, and Jack White’s prowess as a songwriter, musician and performer is undeniable.

Musically nowhere near as awful as I was expecting - they’re clearly a tight band with a well-developed 70s pop sensibility. Let down by drifting into the cheesy schmalz of some of their later work and some questionable lyrics. If ever any further evidence were needed that Steven Tyler was a wrong’un…

I’m getting review fatigue so keeping this one brief! A lot to like, although some of the more overtly ‘gothy’ elements felt a little cartoonish for me.

Definitely one where I can (hopefully) appreciate its qualities and influence on later artists without really connecting with it personally. I think his voice just grates on me and gets in the way of enjoying the music.

One of those instances where I can completely see the value in what an artist is trying to do/say lyrically but ultimately just don’t like the music. Maybe if it had been made in a different decade and not produced with the clear intent of shifting millions of units there would have been a different, more sonically interesting album.

About as close to perfect as music can get for me. Utterly unique and authentic - she could sing the theme tune to ‘Rainbow’ and I would hang on her every word. ‘Little Green’, her first-hand account of placing a child for adoption, had me floored.

Enjoyed this one even if it perhaps sounds a little dated now. As ever with me, it’s all about the bass with this genre, and it’s on point here. Some of it reminded me of that Eddie Izzard bit from years ago about ‘sexy tunes’.

I’m cheating a bit with this one, as I didn’t listen all the way through but was already sufficiently familiar. The consensus among critics and many fans is that this is probably the strongest post-Beatles solo record. I would posit that ‘Something’ was a clear indicator that Harrison was saving up some seriously accomplished work and just needed the opportunity to put it out. It is too long, but the quality of the material is enough to forgive this. On a final point, Harrison’s guitar playing is an object lesson in restraint and good taste.

While I am aware of this album’s lasting influence, it all comes across as rather solipsistic and, dare I say, whiny. Plus the drums are horrible and it’s all a bit too AOR for me.

Gets a four more out of respect for what it represents and its legacy than for any particular enjoyment on my part. It’s just not something I would ever choose to listen to. To my admittedly uneducated ears it sounds a bit dated and I’ve never got on with Bobby Gillespie as a vocalist.

I have no idea whether this constitutes a good example of the genre, so can’t really pass comment.

I was perhaps a little harsh on the White Stripes when I suggested they only had three songs, given The Hives seemingly have just one.

I still don’t feel any better qualified to pass comment on a reggae album, so it’s a ‘neutral’ three again. At least I knew some of the tracks on this one.

Another example of an album where I can appreciate its individual qualities without particularly connecting with the music itself. I suspect context matters also, in the sense that this would have blown me away if I had listened to it thirty-plus years ago but now just sounds like a bit of a museum piece.

It was interesting listening through a couple of times and realising that, even in its ‘sunniest’ moments, there’s a real sense of melancholy at the heart of this album which, In the context of what came before it, makes it all the more remarkable. That it essentially came fully-formed from the mind of one man barely into his twenties is pretty astonishing.

Rock music deconstructed to its most basic elements and drenched in fuzz is very much a good thing in my book. I had never listened to them before but will definitely investigate further and can clearly see where later bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club took their cue.

Couldn’t help but think ‘if you thought things were bad back in 1992, just you wait’. Anyway, it’s difficult to be objective with this one, as there’s an almost emotional attachment to some of the tracks here, and Tim Commerford was a massive formative influence on me as a fledgling bass player.

I genuinely didn’t dislike this anywhere near as much as I thought I would. A three-track album lasting almost forty minutes is never a good omen and the opening passage of noodling did nothing to dispel my feelings of dread. There were some listenable moments, although these sounded very much of their time and were too few and far between.

Appreciated the old school beats and jazz influences but it did get a bit repetitive.

Only really serves any purpose as a curio or artefact, such is its limited sonic palate. ‘In the Pines’ was an interesting one, as it’s always fascinating to hear earlier versions of an iconic cover. Elsewhere, I’m not sure jaunty ditties about murdering one’s girlfriend belong on any normal person’s essential playlist.

I’m almost upset at the fact I can’t really give this one a fair rating. The quality of the songwriting is undeniable but, to my eternal shame, I just can’t get past Dylan’s voice. It’s not as if it annoys me, because it really doesn’t. I almost find it funny, which is probably even more of an insult. I found myself singing along an exaggerating his affectations, which is suspect is very much not the desired effect! I’m going to have to give it 4, if only as a half-arsed attempt at being balanced.