My 1001 Albums Journey

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3.34

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994 albums remaining

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1980

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Folk

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5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Horses Patti Smith	5	3.3	+1.7
Seventeen Seconds The Cure	5	3.38	+1.62
Blackstar David Bowie	5	3.48	+1.52
Unknown Pleasures Joy Division	5	3.48	+1.52
Paul Simon Paul Simon	5	3.51	+1.49
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere Neil Young & Crazy Horse	5	3.54	+1.46
Pink Moon Nick Drake	5	3.65	+1.35
Abraxas Santana	5	3.72	+1.28
Master Of Puppets Metallica	5	3.72	+1.28
The Gilded Palace Of Sin The Flying Burrito Brothers	4	2.92	+1.08

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Blood Sugar Sex Magik Red Hot Chili Peppers	1	3.49	-2.49
Under Construction Missy Elliott	1	3.15	-2.15
Jagged Little Pill Alanis Morissette	2	3.72	-1.72
Stankonia OutKast	2	3.55	-1.55
Tidal Fiona Apple	2	3.46	-1.46
My Generation The Who	2	3.41	-1.41
Mama's Gun Erykah Badu	2	3.25	-1.25
The Predator Ice Cube	2	3.25	-1.25
Songs In The Key Of Life Stevie Wonder	3	4.08	-1.08
Tanto Tempo Bebel Gilberto	2	3.07	-1.07

5-Star Albums (10)

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Popular Reviews

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Red Hot Chili Peppers · 1 likes

1/5

Nick Cave: "I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers." Did I expect to enjoy this? No. Did I go in with preconceived expectations? Yes. I just don't get what people see in the RHCP. It's like someone took an annoying high school white boy funk band and decided what they really needed was a super-whiny singer. I thought Give It Away was about a bad a song as they could make... But then the next song was even worse!

4-Star Albums (31)

1-Star Albums (2)

All Ratings

The Number Of The Beast

Iron Maiden

4/5

Hasn't aged all that well, but some great tunes. Might have given it 5 stars except for the terrible first song "Invaders."

My Generation

The Who

2/5

Hasn't aged at all well. A mix of silly pop songs and white boys trying to sing the blues.

Seventeen Seconds

The Cure

5/5

Really liked this. Didn't know much about the Cure before but found it really interesting and atmospheric.

Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette

2/5

Decent pop singer songwriter stuff. Not really my thing but some huge hits. Would have given it a neutral 3 stars except that her whiny nasal voice really started to grate by the end!

Play

Moby

4/5

Electronica for middle aged middle class White people, but some super catchy tunes in the first half of the album. Gets a bit generic ambient towards the end.

Metallica

4/5

The point at which Metallica shift from a metal band to a stadium rock band? Some great songs (that have been overplayed to death) and some filler. Metallica lyrics are always pretty stupid but here it seems like they're trying to be deep but failing massively.

Under Construction

Missy Elliott

1/5

I tried to give it my best shot but I just really didn't enjoy this at all. I'm sure at the time a woman singing about being empowered sexually was unusual and ground-breaking...but the music did nothing for me.

California

American Music Club

3/5

Had never heard of this band... Heard that it was Americana which sounds like something I would like. In the end it was decent but it didn't really grab me.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

5/5

Hadn't listened to this in ages. Forgot just how good it was. Great proggy rock.

Like Water For Chocolate

Common

2/5

Didn't really get into this at all. Quite background-y. Maybe if I knew more about hip-hop I would be more impressed?

Horses

Patti Smith

5/5

I'd never really listened to Patti Smith before but I liked this a lot. A little punky, a little Doors-y.

Remain In Light

Talking Heads

3/5

Some interesting stuff but a lot of funk-disco jams. Kind of liked it but it didn't grab me.

My Aim Is True

Elvis Costello

4/5

I enjoyed this. It was some fun kind of pop rock and roll. I don't really understand why it's in the 1001 albums list though? Was tossing up between 3 and 4 stars but gave it 4 because I really liked Watching The Defectives.

The Number Of The Beast

Iron Maiden

4/5

Hasn't aged that well but I suspect inspired a lot of 80s hair metal. Some great cheesy tunes.

Blackstar

David Bowie

5/5

I really liked this. Poignant and sad in places but really good.

I Should Coco

Supergrass

3/5

Probably quite influential on all the garage rock bands of the noughties but I didn't find it all that exciting.

The Wall

Pink Floyd

4/5

Some great songs in amongst a bloated concept album that probably isn't quite as clever as Pink Floyd think it is. Gave it 4 for the classic songs but someone really should have had a word.

I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail

Buck Owens

3/5

Well this was very country. The older I get the more I like folksy/country music. This was a bit twangy yee-haw for me but I didn't hate it. I was surprised it was as recent as 1965.

Kings Of The Wild Frontier

Adam & The Ants

2/5

I'd heard of Adam and the Ants before but never actually heard them. Not what I was expecting but also not very exciting. Kind of standard 80s glam rock/new wave?

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

Aretha Franklin

3/5

I was really excited when I saw this come up as I've never listened to much Aretha Franklin but I was kind of disappointed. Her voice is amazing but the songs never grabbed me and her version of Drown In My Own Tears was kind of meh.

Brothers In Arms

Dire Straits

4/5

I've never listened to this album, but I liked it a lot. Almost gave it 5 stars. I didn't think the "hit" songs on this were as good as their best but a consistently enjoyable album.

Bookends

Simon & Garfunkel

4/5

I liked this a lot but didn't love it - very short and a little too background-y in places.

Tres Hombres

ZZ Top

3/5

Bluesy rock is a genre I normally really like but this didn't really grab me.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Red Hot Chili Peppers

1/5

The Colour Of Spring

Talk Talk

4/5

Didn't love this on a first listen but it kind of grew on me. Was tossing up between 3 and 4 stars.

Born In The U.S.A.

Bruce Springsteen

4/5

Not quite a 5 for me. Some great songs (I'm on Fire, Dancing in the Dark) but also a lot of fine but not exciting pop-rock filler (Darlington County, Working on the Highway).

Aqualung

Jethro Tull

3/5

I liked the song Aqualung in all its creepy glory, but the rest of the album was a bit samey/generic folk rock to me. Cool flute-ness but nothing really caught me.

The Gilded Palace Of Sin

The Flying Burrito Brothers

4/5

A few great songs and a few that drag a bit. I really liked Sin City and their version of Do Right Woman.

The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

3/5

I loved the title track and I enjoyed the one about the steam train. I really wanted to like the rest but I just never really got into it.

The Holy Bible

Manic Street Preachers

3/5

I think a later poppier MSP CD might have been my first ever album. Interesting to listen to their punkier stuff. I liked a few songs but found most of it wasn't very catchy.

At Folsom Prison

Johnny Cash

5/5

I haven't listened to this for ages but what a weird concept and what a cool album. June Carter's voice on Jackson is really something else!

Disraeli Gears

Cream

4/5

Some interesting pop-blues-rock. I really liked 4 or 5 of the tracks and then some of the others were pretty meh.

Abraxas

Santana

5/5

I really like this album. Bluesy proggy rock but with a Latin twist. Great cover of Black Magic Woman and I really like Oye Como Va and Samba Pa Ti.

Untitled (Black Is)

SAULT

4/5

Tossing up between a 3 and 4 but probably just a 4 from me. Some cool sounds and tunes and I like the singer's voice a lot. Some filler too.

Buffalo Springfield Again

Buffalo Springfield

3/5

You can definitely see where they were going with this but I didn't find anything as good as later CSN/Neil Young songs.

Stankonia

OutKast

2/5

Meh, sounded like pretty generic hip-hop. Wasn't a fan.

The Joshua Tree

4/5

Basic bitch pop rock but very well done, some very good songs. Given how good their best songs are it baffles me how much complete dross U2 have put out.

Remedy

Basement Jaxx

2/5

Generic clubby dance music. Maybe this is wildly significant and important but if it is, it's lost on me! Some nostalgia but mostly just kind of annoying. Would have been better without the obnoxious auto-tune.

Chore of Enchantment

Giant Sand

3/5

I really liked the vibe of the first few songs when I listened - a bit Beck meets Bill Callaghan. Ended up quite liking it, but even after a couple of listens nothing really grabbed me.

Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division

5/5

I have Joy Division's other album on CD but had never heard most of this. I really liked it. Not always the easiest thing to listen to, but interesting and different.

Power In Numbers

Jurassic 5

4/5

I liked this album quite a lot and was tossing up giving it 5 stars. In the end I didn't think there quite enough killer songs for 5.

Music From Big Pink

The Band

3/5

I like the style of music and I like a lot of the songs...but for some reason I wasn't a massive fan of these versions of these songs. Didn't love the singer's voice and a lot of the songs felt quite slow and laboured.

Mama's Gun

Erykah Badu

2/5

I didn't love her voice which I found quite nasally. None of the songs really caught my attention. Basically I didn't really like it, although I thought some of the backing music was quite cool.

Ritual De Lo Habitual

Jane's Addiction

3/5

I liked bits of this, but other bits drifted. I've listened to another Jane's Addiction album which seemed a bit more focused.

The xx

4/5

I thought I really liked this album but actually when I listened to it this time I didn't love it quite as much. Still very good though!

Hounds Of Love

Kate Bush

3/5

Liked the first couple of songs a lot but nothing after that really grabbed me.

Paul Simon

5/5

I really liked this. More than I expected to. Nice to go back to a 30- something minute album rather than 1 hour +.

Germs

2/5

Meh, pretty generic punk. I guess this was influential in some way? Didn't love it.

Come Find Yourself

Fun Lovin' Criminals

3/5

What if we take all the genres of music we know about and put them on one album?! Not what I was expecting at all. I quite liked it but nothing really grabbed me.

Something/Anything?

Todd Rundgren

2/5

A weird hodge podge of not very interesting songs. I thought I would like this. I didn't.

Hybrid Theory

Linkin Park

3/5

When I was 14 or 15 I was considering buying this album on CD. My friend Ben told me that I shouldn't because it was "rich white boys singing about how angry they are that their parents wouldn't give them enough pocket money." So I didn't. I was expecting to hate this, but I didn't. Not a great album by any means, but some fun songs.

Natty Dread

Bob Marley & The Wailers

3/5

I quite like Bob Marley but I found this album a bit meh. This version of No Woman No Cry is nowhere near as good as the live one.

The Man Who

Travis

4/5

My sister had this on CD when I was 13 or so. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I actually enjoyed this. I don't know that I've listened to it for 20+ years. Coldplay, but better, before Coldplay existed? 3 stars for the music, plus 1 for nostalgia value.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme

Simon & Garfunkel

4/5

Some good songs, a great song (7 o clock news) and quite a lot of filler. The Bob Dylan pastiche is kind of terrible. Generally I thought this was good but a bit too twee in places.

Back To Black

Amy Winehouse

3/5

Controversial opinion but I don't really like Any Winehouse's voice. I get this album was huge and influential but meh.

Transformer

Lou Reed

3/5

Tossing up between 3 and 4. I really like Walk on the Wild Side, and I really like Lou Reed's voice, but I felt like a lot of this album could basically be some Velvet Underground b-sides.

The Wildest!

Louis Prima

4/5

This was really fun! Jazzy rock and rolly weirdness. I liked it.

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective

3/5

Tossing up between 2 and 3 stars. Electropop without any catchy tunes. Meh.

Truth

Jeff Beck

4/5

I liked this, fun bluesy-guitar stuff. Kind of weird hearing Rod Stewart singing, but not the lead.

Pieces Of The Sky

Emmylou Harris

4/5

I really liked some of this. Some of the songs about whiskey and the bottle were a bit too country even for me, but I really like her voice.

Licensed To Ill

Beastie Boys

4/5

I really liked aspects of this, much more than I expected to. Good tunes, cool samples - the only bit I didn't like was their very whiny voices. 3.5 stars.

She's So Unusual

Cyndi Lauper

3/5

I expected to hate this based on Girls Just Wanna Have Fun but there were actually some pretty cool songs. I had no idea she wrote Time After Time.

Back In Black

AC/DC

3/5

Some cheesy bangers on here, but at the end it was all just very samey.

461 Ocean Boulevard

Eric Clapton

3/5

A real mixed bag. Some white boy blues and some decent soft-rock. Would have given it a higher score, but the pointless cover of I Shot the Sherriff, complete with white boy reggae and awful fake-Jamaican accent, is atrocious.

The Predator

Ice Cube

2/5

I'm sure it was important and significant, and I liked some of the samples, but I never really got into it.

Songs In The Key Of Life

Stevie Wonder

3/5

Some nice tunes but a lot of it I found quite backgroundy. I'm not a huge soul person and I find the vocal histrionics a bit offputting in places.

Tommy

The Who

3/5

Some interesting songs and I could imagine it would be a good movie...but doesn't really work as an album to me. Too much plot exposition etc.

Master Of Puppets

Metallica

5/5

Amazing album. It all went downhill after this for Metallica in my opinion, but this is a masterpiece.

Since I Left You

The Avalanches

3/5

I liked the two famous songs on this album and I quite liked the rest...but it was just very background-y. Maybe if I listened to it a bunch more times, I'd get into it.

Electric

The Cult

2/5

Generic cock rock. No idea how this made the 1001 albums list in 1987 given people like AC/DC had already been doing it for a decade by then. Sounded it like it could have been the soundtrack to This Is Spinal Tap if the lyrics had been funny and the band had been in on the joke.

Superfly

Curtis Mayfield

4/5

I liked this quite a lot, more than I expected to. I'm not a big funk/soul person but this was kind of cool and despite being a movie soundtrack, it held my attention pretty well. 3.5 stars.

Pink Moon

Nick Drake

5/5

Haunting, sparse, beautiful.

Mermaid Avenue

Billy Bragg

3/5

I love Billy Bragg, I like Wilco so I had high hopes. So this was a huge disappointment. Really liked Way Over Yonder In A Minor Key and Birds and Ships but most of the rest is pretty meh.

Architecture And Morality

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

4/5

An eclectic mix, but I generally really liked it. Moody and interesting, if a little inconsistent.

A Love Supreme

John Coltrane

3/5

I'm sure this is very clever and very good if you're into this kind of thing. But I'm too ignorant to understand so a lot of it was just very background-y without much of a tune. I liked the odd bit but never really got into it. 2.5 stars.

In It For The Money

Supergrass

3/5

More generic Britpop - again no idea why this is on the list. I quite enjoyed it though, catchier tunes than the previous Supergrass album I had a few months ago.

Underwater Moonlight

The Soft Boys

4/5

This was really fun. Had never hurt of them before this but enjoyed the eclectic funny rock/pop songs.

All Hope Is Gone

Slipknot

2/5

Meh. Pretty generic melodic/poppy metal. No idea why this is on the 1001 albums list.

The World is a Ghetto

War

4/5

I really liked this. A bit funky, a bit prog, good fun. Almost gave it 5.

Band On The Run

Paul McCartney and Wings

3/5

I quite liked this, but I could never really shake the feeling that it felt like an album of unreleased "leftover" Beatles tracks. Band On The Run is a great song, but the rest is...fine. Not bad by any stretch, but not great easier. Tossing up between 3 and 4 stars.

Lam Toro

Baaba Maal

3/5

A very eclectic mix and some interesting stuff in there but as a whole it never really caught me.

Goo

Sonic Youth

3/5

A lot of bands I really like are apparently really influenced by Sonic Youth. This was fine, but didn't love it.

The Rise & Fall

Madness

3/5

Some nice pop songs but very samey by the end.

Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

4/5

I liked this a lot more than the previous Aretha Franklin album I got a while back. Some great tunes done really well.

Exile On Main Street

The Rolling Stones

3/5

I was quite excited about this album. I like the Rolling Stones and have listened to quite a few albums of theirs but not this one. In the end it was fine, but nothing really grabbed me. A lot of pretty samey country blues. Really enjoyed their version of Stop Breaking Down.

Tanto Tempo

Bebel Gilberto

2/5

Perfectly fine background music. I could have hurt this album ten times in restaurants and I'm not sure I would have remembered it.

Garbage

4/5

I can't believe this album is over 30 years old - it sounds like "modern" music to me but it was as close to the Beatles early stuff as it is to the current day. Some fun tunes and I really liked the very heavy guitars on a pop-rock thing they have on some songs.

The Scream

Siouxsie And The Banshees

2/5

Based on the timing, I guess this was very influential but it's not very interesting to listen to. Not nearly as fun as other early punk like the Sex Pistols and the Ramones.

The Genius Of Ray Charles

Ray Charles

4/5

Really enjoyed the first few songs but then it got slower and less interesting. Still a fun album.

Dusty In Memphis

Dusty Springfield

3/5

Beautiful voice and some cool tunes but quite same-y. I suspect if you really like this sort of thing it's great but it's not really my cup of tea.

Tidal

Fiona Apple

2/5

Didn't like her voice, didn't get into any of the tunes. Meh all a bit backgroundy. Lyrics have a lot of attitude but didn't make it any less forgettable. Is Badass Background a genre?

You've Come a Long Way Baby

Fatboy Slim

4/5

Not really a style of music I listen to any more, but this was one of the first CDs I owned when I was about 13. Hadn't listened to Fatboy Slim in decades...but it's actually kind of good. Seeing him live in this era must have been pretty amazing.

Exodus

Bob Marley & The Wailers

3/5

I thought I would really like this as I only knew the big hits from it. Listened a couple of times through and never really got into it - really liked Wait In Vain, One Love, and Three Little Birds but the rest didn't really catch me.

Pretenders

4/5

I didn't really know the Pretenders but I had a vague thought they were a kind of genetic synth pop group. I liked this way more than I expected. Much rockier and punkier than I thought it would be.

Crime Of The Century

Supertramp

3/5

Reminded me of The Who at their most proggy. Decent but nothing that seemed that new or different.