1001 Albums Summary

I know nothing of Cyndi Lauper, or much about the early 80s scene, but this album sounds like a direct ancestor of a lot of very familiar synth pop. I know all the iconic synths and drum machines were new at this time, and artists were seeing what they could do with them. Sounds like Cyndi helped set the mold for giddy, girly pop bangers - some of which I'm sure I've heard mixed in at Electric Feels. Cyndi walked so No Doubt, Metric, and Grimes could run.

Here's a forgettable review for a forgettable album. The proto-pop-punkish first half didn't do anything for me. I'd probably dig the lyrics, but the vocals put me off. But then the latter half takes a hit of hash, gives the vocals a break, and falls into some nice late 90s downtempo grooves, which I could see slotting in a playlist with UNKLE and Moby. But I probably won't.

It took me until a few months ago to finally watch Walk the Line, so even though I'd grown up listening to Johnny Cash, I never really appreciated his mythology until now. To listen to Folsom Prison without context seems like you're missing half the story. There's a whole meta narrative in the lyrics, set list, and banter that encapsulates Cash's anti-authority shtick and actually seems to say a lot about the prison industrial complex and predatory penal system. So that's neat.

I'm no early 90's gangsta rap expert, but OG sounds pretty un-OG and derivative. Some decent beats - pretty sure Dj Shadow sampled Midnight for Midnight in a Perfect World, which is neat. ...wait, is that actually the intro to When the Levee Breaks? Anyway, T's OG music gives me the same meh as Body Count, his rock/metal band. Superfluous and unnecessary. I'll keep my ice cubed.

The definitive mom and dad rock album of my early childhood. Those margaritaville guitar+piano riffs and blerguevuederbadoo vocals bring back so many memories. I can practically smell the old carpet. But I recently learned that The Boss is Tom Morello's rock n roll hero, so I'll try to listen to the album in its pure context. 1975. Watergate. Vietnam. Khmer Rouge. Thatcher. Jahova's Witness Armageddon. Turns out Springsteen was a counter-culture revolutionary? These lyrics are deep, almost like beat-scene poetry. Anti-war, anti-capital. Backstreets is about a secret gay teen love affair? Did our parents catch all this, or did they just hear big jams and Elvis-adjacent jibber-singing? I'm into it.

I don't hate it. Probably a lot of kids in the 60s liked it. I'll never listen to it again. I appreciate that they paved the way for David Draiman to choke on the same hairball on every Disturbed song. WAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

I used to think TMR was just a shibboleth for hipster cred. You have to pretend to like this album to be in the club, just like you have to pretend trump won 2020 to work in his administration. Jumping in fresh, it is quite a beating, what with the harsh hillbilly vocals and semi-musical horn wailing and string plucking. But like a benign carbuncle, it grew on me over the years. Harsh vocals? I listen to Meshuggah, Amon Amarath, Miley Cyrus. Challenging, even adversarial aesthetics? I listen to Autechre, Gwar, Radiohead. And now I actually appreciate TMR a lot more since getting into Tom Waits, Primus, and other impenetrable rabble. So from me, an initiated weirdo, it gets a 3.

I guess it's a feature of legitimate punk to sound like butt. That's the barrier to entry to keep the normals out. I appreciate that. But I'm not on that side of the fence yet with Black Flag.

I've been a Goldfrapp head since Strict Machine was on that commercial for Nip/Tuck. And by that I mean I liked that one song. That song slaps. This album doesn't. This album is a snooze. If Gen Z has heard of it, I'd say it's a progenitor of modern snoozecore, but I don't think they have, so it's probably just boring.

Yes. oh yes. This bangs. Space traveling falsetto screeching psych rock opera revealing the mysteries of the universe. I'm all about it.

Thanks, any excuse to listen to one of my most formative albums. It is, of course, flawless. Every lyric and every riff is iconic. This is the essential ur-language of heavy metal. Oh to be a young bloke in 1970, transcending the shadows of war and nuclear winter with righteous minor pentatonic guitar solos.

2010 was a pivotal year for Millenials. We were in our early 20s, moving out, getting money, discovering how far a tank of gas could get us. Original recipe 4lokos were 3/$6. Beer pong was a national sport. Music and culture festivals we starting to blow up. The geopolitical context? Nobody knows, we weren't paying attention. But MBDTF was the soundtrack. It was on the radio. It was in the club. It was on the homie's ipod in the garage. You'd hype up for Dark Fantasy and Who Will Survive. You'd peak through Power, All of the Lights and Monster. You'd crash out on the couch during those long ones, drifting through the strings and piano parts while the mayhem continues in the other room. You'd wake up half way into Lost in the World, spinning, questioning your life choices, lost in some citaay, lost in the wooorld, and either run to throw up or go down for the night. These were our songs.

It's amazing how much greater the four Beatles combined are than the sum of their parts. The solo projects are all somehow underwhelming, mediocre even. Imagine is Imagine, of course, but would the rest of the album still be listened to if it was made by anyone else? It probably isn't anyway tbh.

For a comedy duo, the songs weren't very funny. And I don't think I even heard Abbott.

Never heard of Tracy Chapman, but what a great discovery. I listened to the album on repeat all day. Across the Lines, Behind the Wall, Why?, In Not Now..., all great social justice songs that make think of a soft rock Marvin Gaye. And Talkin Bout a Revolution goes right on the antifa playlist.

Love this album. Such essential 1990's trip hop. Sounds like crime and drugs in grimy London undergrounds. Overcome and Black Steel are up there with the best of Massive Attack. Yeah, the vocals can be a bit shit. And yeah, like most trip hop albums, you get a few scene-defining bangers and a lot of boring sleepybeats. Okay, this is actually a lot more boring than I remember. But blokes on smack don't want any clangy clattering instrumentals or sudden tempo changes. Maybe you had to be there. On the rainy streets of London, or spun out in an opium den, or up drawing anime characters by lava lamp at 1am on a school night. That's where I go, anyway.

A nice listen. A bit like light Cream. I was feelin Feelin Alright and Medicated Goo. And some spicy guitar parts on songs like Pearly Queen had me spinning it back.

I gave it a couple listens. I think it was fine, as far as 1950s rock goes. They're tunes from another time and another place, prosaic pop the whole family could tune into. Thanks to Bioshock, the whole genre sounds like a veneer for something sinister to me. Soft singing and simple lyrics that draw attention from unseen horrors. Post-war reconstruction. Segregation. Bio-mechanical drill monsters.

I put it on a few times, got half way through and realized I hadn't heard anything. Started again and turned it up. How do they get such big fonts on festival lineups? I guess snoozecore is big with the kids. Soft rock with minimal, repetetive instrumentation and lullaby singing. I once read a review that said The XX is music for sleeping babies. I like The XX, but could not find the lie. An Ocean In Between the Waves and Burning do pick up, but most of the latter half coasts on Pink Floyd vibes. Disappearing sounds like it could be a languid cut from The Division Bell, but unfortunately David Gilmore or Roger Waters never turn up. I think theyre too quick to judge drugs.

I've never sat and listened to an Adele song. I'm aware of Hello from an SNL skit. But she's not entirely outside my wheelhouse. I like good pop and a strong female lead. Grace Slick, Florence, Amy Winehouse, etc. If it's authentic I can dig it. Highly produced pop with simple, formulaic lyrics usually rings hollow, but that's not the case here. There's plenty of good lines, hooks, and music. My criticism might be that it sounds a little over-produced. The lyrics are good, but in some cases the big room production drowns out the soul. Send My Love is catchy, but I think it would sound better without the big kickdrum in the chorus. Same with I Miss You. Sure, that's just like, my opinion, but I'm wishing each song had a 1-3 piece folk version. The production has cajones, and probably that's the appeal for people who want to sing along in the car, but does every song need to be an anthem? It does settle down toward the end with Million Years Ago and All I Ask, and I think she shines on those. They're just 'girl with a guitar' and 'girl with a piano,' but her voice is so powerful that they have all the arena-filling drama without the booming drums and layers. But maybe the bombast is just her sound. Adele is Adele and she does it well.

This is another one that's like oil on water for me. Ballads just go in one ear and out the other. The first half sounds like Christmas songs. But they sound nice and I'd put them on in the background if I was visiting an elderly relative around the holidays. You Haven't Done Nothin' and Please Don't Go do get cooking. They Won't Go When I Go is haunting, I kept going back to that one. Apparently the only song on the album not written by Stevie, according to the wiki. It's a dark dirge, way more my speed than his typical sound.

I know I should like Nick Cave. I've given his albums a few shots and only a few tracks have really stuck. Into My Arms is a great opener. It really sets the mood: a little dark, a little odd, with terse piano hooks that make you a little uncomfortable. Through the middle it gets a bit monotonous, a lot of the same mood, tempo, and tones, but he does it best on Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere? Then there's a shift for West Country Girl, which has a more driving, cinematic take that I think is one of the highlights. The second half slopes back down with more soft jazz and poetry that doesn't do much for me. I don't think his voice is that great, but he's the quintessential crooner for weirdos. He shines on the darker songs - grandiose, misanthropic lyrics paired with violin string plucks and standup bass-driven doom jazz. It's music for David Lynch movies. Listeners of Tom Waits, the Desden Dolls, or the Peculiar Pretzelmen. Steampunk enthusiasts. Taxidermied mouse parades. Hit and miss, but I appreciate.

My first real ELO listen was about what I expected: bright, bubbly, orchestral, almost cinematic post-disco grooves. A lot of influence from that other big gay English prog rock band, Queen. It's got the layers, it's got the grandiosity, but doesn't quite reach those highs. There aren't any big anthems, and the vocals don't really distinguish themselves in the mix like Freddy's. So lacking a Freddy, it's the sweeping instrumentals that are the star of the show, a kalaidoscope of strings, synths, guitar, piano, and percussion of all kinds. I can imagine the lights and stage production that must have gone into the live shows, and the slackjawed teen boomers frying balls on a few 1970s tabs in a field in Birmingham to Turn to Stone and Standin' in the Rain. No doubt I'd have been right there with them.

I know of The Specials because of the dearth of Ghost Town jungle remixes from the 90s, so I get the impression they're a big deal in the UK. I see they have an album of protest song covers from 2021, I'll need to give that a look. First track. I guess this is ska? The blokes-at-the-tavern chorus doesn't grab me. Man at C&A has some slightly trippy vibes that I dig. It's a head change. Or maybe I just had too much lunch and am feeling ill. Hey, Little Rich Girl is fun. It's what I think good ska probably sounds like. Then a few tracks where I don't really get what they're trying to do. There's some storytelling. Stereotype sounds like something you'd half hear from the floor of a heroin house. Maybe all of it is. Alright, that's all I can do. It is Later Than I Think, and I will take their advice and Enjoy Myself rather than finish the album.

Neil Young, for me a neglected saint of the old folk pantheon. I can tell from My My, Hey Hey that I need to slow down and listen to this one. I sense great depths. I see a young man surveying a landscape of bloodsoaked Americana, singing songs of mourning, and of foreboding, of wheat before the thrasher, a gunship on the shore, the encroach of modernity. I know from his political comments, almost 50 years later, that he remained an empathetic American and ineluctable prophet of doom. The ship still looms, blood still runs. He must be tired.

And ya'll said Tricky was boring. I'm trying to picture for who, what, where, or when Steely Dan goes off, and all that comes to mind is possibly a golden alumni reunion at a state college. And I can't go back there.

Critically examining the Slim Shady LP. Do we dare? It's not my favorite Eminem album, but probably top 5. My Jonah-Hill-in-21-Jump-Street Shady era was 02-04, when The Eminem Show dropped and music videos for Without Me and Cleanin Out My Closet were on constant rotation between episodes of Jackass on MTV. I memorized that album. I rapped it for friends at P.E. Then I went backwards, to the Slim Shady LP. This one doesn't have the bops or the beats that The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show would have. The hooks are undercooked. But his flows and storytelling were already finely tuned. My Name Is. This track dropped like the Silver Surfer heralding the coming of Galactus. It crashed onto the scene and annoyed everyone in exactly the right way. That beat was so fresh. It opened up rap and hip hop for white boys like nothing before. Guilty Conscience. Lol. I know. Man. A relic from a time when certain cancel culture crusading conservatives were supposedly against statutory rape and gun violence. Those good ol pre-Uvalde, pre-Eptein-files days. Brain Damage. Em the storyteller poet on full display. If I Had. This one was always a skip. '97 Bonnie & Clyde. Jesus. Role Model. Feels like filler, with similar ideas that didn't fit in other, better songs. My Fault. Another one with an obnoxious hook that I'm sure played better for '00 high schoolers huffing glue. Cum On Everybody. Maybe the first Eminem 'party' track. Great flow and storytelling, decent beat, but for every great Eminem party track, there's like 3 of these, with weak hooks and not much to sing along to. They tend to be about as awkward as I imagine Em would be at a party, unless he's off his head and dressed in a rapboy costume. Rock Bottom. Back to form, a snapshot from minimum wage Detroit, raps for an underprivileged underclass that resonated throughout the country. Just Don't Give A Fuck. Prime Slim Shady, everything hits. The ethos, the rhymes, the flow, the jokes, the fun beat and amazing rollercoaster hook. As The World Turns. Probably my favorite story track. The last half of this album is stacked. I'm Shady. A really underrated jam, but it's great to drop in a Y2K playlist and remind everyone how fun this era's Shady could be. Bad Meets Evil. Another sleeper. The only guest rapper on the album, but it's so cohesive. They hand off like two halves of one brain. Still Don't Give A Fuck. Perfect coda for a molotov cocktail thrown at the original cancel culture warriors, who were probably already picketing Marilyn Manson concerts and Harry Potter boook releases. It literally reshaped the discourse around artistic expression for a generation. Was it a net positive for society? Probably not. Like old South Park episodes, the cynicism might've stuck in the culture more than the satire. I don't think Em corrupted the youth, but his point of view was so visceral and narcotic that it shined a white light on a generation and revealed the Shadys.

wtf is Tom Tom Club? Wordy Rappinghood, what is going on. What is going on. A lot of vaguely spiritual chanting and tribal percussion and woodwinds. It's like some tinker hippies got into a recording studio and started playing with noise toys. It ain't bad on As Above, So Below, actually. It's somewhere between Kidzbop and experimental spiritpop for Sedona crystal merchants. Maybe this is what they play in the family camp at Lightning in a Bottle. On, On, On, On. The gypsies are coming. It's almost a threat? To the owner of the recording studio? And then some more simple synth beats and inscrutible lyrics that I suspect are cryptologically quite sinister. I don't know man.

I love how innocent 90s hip hop could be. LL sounds like he'd be on the The All That soundtrack. Milky Cereal could have been on Doug. It's easy listening. I don't need to know who's beefing with who or if I can play it loudly in certain neighborhoods. Nice addition to the old school hip hop list.

We're taking it back. Back to high school. This album is made of nostalgia and good feels. I liked it because girls liked it. The Stripes had the purity to shine through the cracks of my moody metal playlists. Some of it's a little more corny than I could manage back then. Kinda still is. But Jack is an understated guitar pioneer and him and Meg together have the magic talent multiplier that makes them far greater than the sum of their parts.

I listened to Parklife a few times in college, getting into the headspace of young brit punks as I wrote a thinly-veiled ripoff of Trainspotting. Blur was also often just a few lines of lineage back from all the UK EDM sounds that were starting to invade the states. I couldn't get past the blandness back then. Needed the spice of the drum & bass remix. The Gorillaz Blur aint. Now years of banal adulthood have worn away my youthful predilections. I eat plain rice and beans every day and I have the patience of an old oak tree. It's still pretty bland. End of Century, Parklife, and Badhead are good. I can see liking Magic America. It all probably hits better in the UK, I'm sure. But it's gonna be a 2 from a 'murican who wasn't there.

Doolittle did little.

I diasappoint my college jazz teacher once again with another tangential, unstudied review. The Solo Dancer, the Sinner Lady I presume, confidently struts onto the mental stage. They come in hot, showing off their moves with the backing of the band. Then they get intimate, opening the kimono. Lots of playful trills and high-heeled marches up and down the scales. Piano notes build a new stage, and you can hearsee the Duete Solo Dancers, Black Saint and Sinner Lady, swagger in, circling, joining slowly together. They're languid and slippery. That deep horn is a real hoe. They slide and dip and thrust. Yeah, they're banging. This is graphic. About two thirds in, they spooge. The first horn smokes a cigarette. Then they tease it back up for round two. The gentle piano returns as the stage is mopped and reset. A Spanish guitar gives the place a sultry ambiance. The horns return and now there's three or four, and they all sort of writhe and hump, but they keep it dry. My specific and circumscribed formative exposure to instrumental classical and jazz compels my imagination to recast the instruments with Loony Tunes characters. But there they go in Mode D, Bugs and Daffy locked in a saucy Spanish bailar for some reason. Then here comes Taz and Porky, and everyone's twirling and changing partners like frenzied marsupials, and Elmer Fudd's trying to get a bead on Bugs but they're moving too fast, and Porky's in drag and Taz is actually trying to catch Tweety, but Tweety's riding the rhythm and the rhythm is too pure to be grasped by vulgar paws, and Bugs pulls Elmer into a tango and his rifle falls like the Berlin wall, and it goes off into the ceiling, raining sparks from the lights as they cavort in an orgiastic crescendo of fur and feathers, and then the debris settles and Bugs and Daffy turn back into the Sinner Lady and the Black Saint turn back into two and then one wailing horn fading into a shrinking iris. That's all folks.

This is a lot of long, meandering raps. I checked out for a lot of it. But Underwater Rimes got me back. Did Marlon write this?

So this is where all those annoying pop culture songs came from. Back to the Carter era with you.

The band just released a deluxe edition of this like today, perfect timing. I'll preface by saying that I like the xx. Before I give a perfunctory analysis that sounds mostly negative but isn't. Their debut album is foundational snoozecore, but they know that. Simple, homogenous compositions. Tender lullabye singing. Band name lowercase, no pretentions to capital letters. the xx whispered so that crumb could mumble. But that's the style. It's music for sensitive souls that need a break from loud noises or sudden tempo changes. Music for sitting in the dark with headphones, creeping your crush's posts. The guy's singing is pretty lackluster, I do admit. And Romy has distinguished herself a lot more as a solo artist since this album. And Jamie's productions have likewise come a long way. But they've got the cute best friend band thing going, and that's the charm. I do like the xx. I would see the xx live again. I will put my baby to sleep to the xx. But this is like a generous 2/5.

A deep cut from the depths of the Renaissance Faire? I love bardcore, but bardcore cooks. This is like, prog bard with hare krishna vibes. It's the musical equivalent of getting cornered by a krishna monk on a school campus. I think these guys would get run out of the tavern.

I'm not sure how to evaluate a live album. The setlist? The vibes? This is some vintage Dylan. Just the man and his guitar. My aunts and uncles like to opine about how boring Dylan is live, having seen him a few times around LA in the 70s and 80s. I guess it's the die-hard folkheads, the ones that would later start frothing and rending their clothes if he dared to plug in an instrument, that hang on two hours of poetry and acousic strumming. The set starts soft with She Belngs to Me, Fourth Time Around, and Visions of Johanna. All songs I've never really listened to, but that seem to be melancholies about the women in his life. Visions is quite long and meandering. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue shines a little more, with those dripping harmonica rejoinders. About halfway through Desolation Row I'd probably be going for another tall beer. They were probably like 75 cents. By Mr. Tambourine Man, current me would probably have gotten my fix and left to go see the Stones. But if I was a 1966 folker? Maybe it's a transcendent 5/5 set?

I remain an inarticulate clod who failed jazz history in college, but I likes what I likes. And I likes when the different instruments have big personalities and interplay. Brilliant Corners' title track is like a conversation between the horns and the drums. Maybe its for the studied jazz initiates to know what they're saying. Ba-Lue Bolivar is a little more even-keeled, but it's not like you can have a bad time with a good sax. The bass has a great solo at the end. Pannonica and I Surrender chill out and get loungy. Not a lot for a jazz clod to latch on to. But then Bemsha Swing swings back, with some great grooves that let the sax and piano shine. Love those big drum builds that drop back into walking bass grooves. I don't know that it's that transcendent of an album, but it sounds like good jazz to me. I bet everyone had a nice time.

I'm not a radioheadhead, and in fact I don't think I've ever heard a single song on this album. But they really are amazing prog musicians. And it's really accessible prog, barely anything over 4 minutes. I listened through twice and I'll hang on to at least a few songs.

This one's a time capsule, even though I never really listened to it. I remember soft synth rock and dream pop taking off around this time. Bonobo. M83. The xx. Empire of the Sun. Maybe it was a reaction to the sudden proliferation of hype EDM and partyrock shite. Those other bands did the dream pop sound, but snuck in radio-friendly hits that made it into festival remixes and car commercials. Beach House kept it dreamy, which is fine, but on a real listen, I think it could've used a bit more pizazz. Zebra's a nice intro. Silver Soul has orders of magnitude more listens on Spotify than the rest, don't know why. Seems kinda unremarkable for a single. But it sounds like they'll get up to some slide guitar shenanigans throughout the album. Norway - yeah, nice slides. The middle songs kinda meander until 10 Mile Stereo, which has some motion and drama. Sounds like M83 with lesser vocals. Take Care is a good ending. It feels like it completes the dream. Overall, some nice instrumentals, but not a lot to distinguish it. It's not even that dreamy. Everything is played pretty safe. The pace and vocals all keep to the same narrow range. But I'd be interested to hear later albums and see where they went from here.