Interesting instrumentals.
Interesting view into early Winehouse before Back to Black album blew up.
English indie pop. Excellent post-house music electronic pop.
Favorite Tracks:
Intro
VCR
Islands
Shelter
I listened to the Deluxe edition on Spotify with B sides and live tracks.
The Polly Smart Studio session was a cool find.
Memories of buying this album at the Buckingham Square mall in Denver. Musicland CD store. Probably the same place that I bought Guns n Roses Use Your Illusion. An era.
Need to go back and relisten to this one!!
GnR were such a part of my early teen years
Fantastic. Enjoyed learning more about English ska history.
Great to drop some blues in the middle of Appetite for Destruction and Costello brit pop. I wanted to jump in the car and drive to Memphis.
A blast of guitar that's instantly recognizable. "With a little Help" morphs into "Lucy in the Sky.". The plane ride to post colonial India with the first biggest Rock band in the World that resulted in "Within You Without You."
Sgt Peppers is more than an album. It's a postcard from The Beatles to give future generations an insight into what the end of the road felt like for George, Paul, John, and Ringo.
This album broke my streak of knowing (and liking) the artists and the music selections.
If I liked the music more I might spend time researching more of the "why?" Behind what is going here. But I gave it about half an hour of time and I was still more like "why the f--k??"
Were they trying to be English cottage Frank Zappa?
Verve has always felt like Third Eye Blind, Semisonic, Goo Goo Dolls, Friends theme song, yadda yadda. Pseudo alternative music that came after Nirvana, Pumpkins, Oasis.
It's for people too chickenshit to listen to music that pisses off their parents.
I'm listening to it now picturing Liam Gallagher beating the lead singer with an amp.
Enjoyed getting to hear this album as a whole for the first time. And then starting to unpeel the stories of each of the group members.
Interesting bridge between the Beatles and solo and Wings work. Love the album art.
An album overshadowed by Tommy. Thankful to listen to this rediscovery.
I didn't like the misogyny of gangster rap then and definitely not now.
It turns out that 70s rock opera is way more my speed than I even expected.
Gave me a new appreciation for the music born out of New Orleans.
I'll say this, we had to drive home late after a long day. Aja by Steely Dan kept my thirteen year old happily asleep for most of the ride.
This album is how I imagine much of the late 70s radio music scene must have felt.
It was fun to learn about Fogerty and CCR. Crazy to think about the amount and quality of songs that he created in the 1975-1969 span.
Great.
This is what an album experience should be. Each song is unique, but adds together to build into a whole.
Original albums are such a better experience than Greatest Hits.
Loved this first-time listen. Opening "Billy Jack" and the sincere "Jesus". Favorite was "Blue Monday People".
The cover art is brilliant.
As classic album as classic albums get.
Another classic album in the timeline of guitar evolution.
Looking forward to this one! I know Welch's name, but not her music very well. Let's see where this goes...
Brings back so many memories. I understand better now how Ozzy, Geezer, and Iommi would have grown up in the shadow of the Beatles, Stones, Who, and American rock. To feel so close in age, yet still an outsider.
You hear both the severance for electric guitar, but also the anger of wanting to create a new type of music of their own.
Yeah. Okay. This is a solid album full of hits. The story behind its recording also fits in the legends of rock and roll. As much as I believe the music of Boston is indistinguishable from REO Speedwagon, Chicago, Cheap Trick, and numerous other mid 70s bands, it is very true that this is an impressive debut album with zero filler.
Wow, I always thought Spinal Tap was making fun of American rock bands. But every song on this album was an unintended parody skit.
Not really my favorite music, but I remember how DM gave 80s music a dark edge that would influence the rise of grunge and then Nine inch Nails.
This review was unearthed from 2010-11 when the album first came out. West had recently lost his mother in 2007. She died of complications after a series of cosmetic surgeries. That seems to be one of a series of traumatic events, many self-inflicted, that West experienced on his quixotic quest for fame and wealth.
It's not a great album and he is definitely not a great person. His antihero journey is symbolic of the dark, twisted American Dream that has become all of our existence. So four stars for the failure we are all trying to live through at the moment. Kanye, you achieved your dream of creating your nightmare. What a blueprint.
This was a first discovery of an Australian early punk pioneer that experimented with a horn section. I'm in.
Powerman by the Kinks is still my favorite album. But I always love a new Kinks discovery.
Another English version of American music who I never got into when I was younger.
The dream of the 90s is still alive in the Underworld. Although many tracks captured the repeitition of electronic music of that era, others flashed the promise of a post-Trainspotting world of music.
Kind of like listening to Dylan's most recent albums. You hear the whole career in each song. Not sure any of these rose to the classic status of earlier work. But I love to remember the moments I discovered Cohen along the way.
Had a feeling this one would make an appearance.
I listened to Highway Patrolman again and again last night. It was probably on when I finally fell asleep.
The legends around the recording of this album will probably go on to live next to the music itself.
"Man turns his back on his family, well he just ain't no good."
Springsteen became something else with this album. Before he was another rock singer trying to rise above a saturated east coast scene. Two years after Nebraska he would rise with Born in the USA. I wonder how much he listened to Nebraska during that time to keep himself grounded.
I wish I would have had this album then, too.
Five stars. It just is.
Even the filler songs on a Who album are joyous to listen to. "The Song is Over" and "Getting in Tune" were surprising rediscoveries.
This is a great album full of all the beats that became classics.
I wish I could go back and be more of A Tribe Called Quest fan when I was also at the height of being a Beastie Boys fan.
Actually, I'd like to be in a room with both groups making music together.
This was another album where I've heard some of the songs before, but never knew who made them. Or why.
I can respect Les Paul's contribution to the history of music by innovating the electric guitar, but I don't really look forward to listening to Les Paul's music.
I feel the same about Brian Eno and electronic music.
Okay, I see the appeal of Kendrick now.
Some songs reminded me of Michael Hedges exploring guitar combinations.
Probably an artist I would have liked more if I had listened to more albums beyond the singles that got radio.
Decent flashback to the late 80s.
It's a Joni Mitchell album of 70s experimental synthesizers. I kept hearing the Tom Petty lyric, imagining the record company saying, "I don't hear a single." But you're Joni Mitchell -- she gets to make whatever she wants.
This project has made me a huge Elvis Costello fan.
I think you had to be there.
I haven't heard this many hits on a 70s debut album since Boston!
I hope that Steely Dan will continue to have evolving layers of relevance in our shared pop culture tissue.
Zeppelin is an instant 5.
This was one of the first albums that E and I agreed on for road trips.
Soundgarden was never on the same level for me as Pearl Jam or Nirvana. Returning to this album thirty years later didn't changey mind
Sure, some parts are pure decadence. But isn't that what made Prince great?
I love the idea of seeing a live Cheap Trick concert at the Budokan in the 70s more than listening to a recording of it in 2026.
Every White Tripes album was a moment of music history where was Rock was reclaimed and updated for the 21st century.
Not as much fun as the other album on the list.
Not a huge Green Day fan. But this one is a classic of the era.
Has the potential for future generations to rediscover
"A Christmas Gift from Phil Spector" would be an awesome postmodern horror movie. Keep this album as the soundtrack. It would be bananas.
Damn. A 12 minute opening track. I was already showered and ready for a nap before track #2.
A relaxing break today. I felt underdressed for listening to this music. I needed to be in a New York apartment in the early 60s.
Fun discovery. Easy to see how this influenced Red Hot Chili Peppers, REM, and U2.
It's Bruce. Classic, 1975 Bruce. Bruce and the E Street Shuffle making music together - with their backs against the wall trying to find the magic after their first two albums didn't quite reach the expected level of success. Musicians in the band were changed out. Struggles with the label. And then Born to Run is created and starts to take off.
Belongs on the list of great 80s early hip-hop albums.
My first listen left me feeling like this must have been an overblown exercise in excess by Fleetwood Mac when they were at the height of their seventies popularity. All of the opening songs felt like over-the-top parodies of their hit songs.
Then I read about the making of the album and realized that the excess was the message of this double album recorded after the success of Rumours. They were sending a message to their label and their fanbase -- and trying to keep in touch with what gave them their music in the first place.
I read the fun article in The Independent: “Lindsey Buckingham on the wild story of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk: ‘Everything got somewhat decadent’”. If you were wondering if they trucked in champagne and lobster to the studio while recording Tusk, then the answer is yes.
My listening took a turn at the song “Sisters of the Moon.” This felt like an extension of Nicks’ and Buckingham’s earlier hits – but also different. Then I listened to “Too Funny” to see if there was really a White Stripes vibe and the college marching band-fueled title track.
“Sometimes, the most beautiful things
The most innocent things
And many of those dreams, pass us by
Keep passing me by.”
– opening lyrics to “Angel”
I’m grateful that I gave this album a second listen. I understand the timeline of Fleetwood Mac much more.
When you listen to an album and wish you could go back to that time period and listen to the music the way it was meant to be heard and celebrated. Then that album is a 5.
Oh good, more 70's space rock
I wasn't a big Mudhoney fan. I skipped right to Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Mudhoney sounds like they were trying to make post-punk before they dove full into Grunge.
But go listen to "Good Enough" on their Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge album. Do you hear echoes of the Kinks and Rolling Stones before the song makes a full dive into Seattle sound at 2:40?
Cool to see the early days of psychedlic rock. I only knew their hit on classic rock radio in the 80s.
An album that has aged surprisingly well. The title track's lyrics are even more appropriate today than in the Bush era. Definitely is channeling The Who's Tommy vibe into a modern punk rock opera.
Could have used a solid LBJ shout-out, though.
Favorite track: Grand Finale - A swooning, orchestral finish to an album filled with juvenile lyrics that will be forever immortalized by the giant middle finger of the title track. Imagine Alice Cooper conducting this beautiful song. His face must have been so happy to know he was capable of such beauty amidst the snakes and leather bravado of his stage persona.
I went down a rabbit hole to see how much Thurston Moore acknowledged the influence of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground on his music. Spoiler alert: he whole-heartedly admits it.
When you need just the right cocktail music for your end-of-democracy themed 80s party.
This one was like listening to the Stones inside a time machine. Could they see their future as they were cranking out the tracks? Did they believe in the ones that sounded straight out of a studio exec's wishlist? Were they bristling to writer more verses to Mother's Little Helper?
Achtung Baby was the turning point album where U2 avoided becoming an 80s nostalgia band to enter into the rock pantheon with immortal bands like the Stones and Beatles.
"Mysterious Ways" was also a turning point in my music appreciation. I went from loving bands from the past (Beatles, Led Zeppelin) to witnessing great music appear in my own young life.
Enjoyed discovering all these songs. I recognized Stolen Car, but never connected it was Orton.
While Bowie was glamming it up and metal was kickstarting the engines, Crosby apparently locked himself with friends up in Laurel Canyon and practiced endearing, eternal harmonies. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all of it 55 years later.
Listening again reminded me how huge this album was when it was released. It's almost comical to imagine a metal album having the same cultural reach today.
Arcade Fire and the White Stripes were two bands that gave me hope for the future of rock music in the 2000s.
This was a fun discovery. Enjoyed reading the Brooklyn Vegan interview with Matt Johnson. I'd love to find a conversation between Johnson and Robert Smith of The Cure.
"Giant" is so far my favorite track. The drums at 5:00 mark are epic. The whole album feels like the music a venue plays before a concert to get the crowd pumped up.
I wish Antonoff, Del Rey and Taylor Swift would collaborate on a whole album. Interviews with Del Rey are fascinating. Someone in complete control of themselves and their vision for the music. Very curious to see what she continues to make in the next decades.
The redeeming quality of this album was imagining how Nick Cave and future members of his backing bands were attempting to rebel against conventional musicality of the early 80s. Because all of these songs felt like sonic attacks on the listener. I struggled valiantly to get through each song, usually failing.
The challenge of EDM music is how to create unique music that can give you a distinct new sound worth listening to. I'd listen to this again.
I am so glad to live listening to this generation of pop superstars. Lorde continues to produce interesting music for a mass audience. Jack Antonoff's fingerprints are throughout the songs -- but the vocal choices are all Lorde's.
I'll be curious if music from the Beatles, Elvis, the Rolling Stones, etc. survives another generation. I'm sure we all thought the White Album would be an eternal staple of the music landscape. But already some of these songs felt more nostalgic than I expected they would. Could the Beatles become the equivalent to listening to Big Band/Moon River sentimental songs? We shall see.
Layers upon layers of 90s music history. Violet still hits instantly from the first note. Love doesn't care what I think and shouldn't. I love that.
My copy of "Boy with the Arab Strap" got worn out in the late 90s. If I had had a copy of "...Sinister" it would have the same wear marks.
If Mr. Brightside isn't on this album, does it make the 1001 list at all?
Unlike many of the other Blur/Oasis clones of this era, I enjoyed listening to this.
Important for its intersection of east coast hardcore and LA punk. Produced by Joan Jett? That's worth at least three stars.
This sounds like the lead singer spent years worshipping the Velvet Underground, joined with his high school friends to start a band, and then struggled in the studio to capture their live magic. Eventually they'll probably split up for solo careers or play with bands like Talking Heads or The Cars.
Oh wait...
Another English band who wasn't on the radar for 80s and 90s middle America.
Five stars because Scott-Heron should be a household name in America
Do younger generations look at old Kanye records the way I look at Elvis?
Surprise discovery. Reading the wikipedia on the history add a new layer to the Elvis mystique. "Long Black Limousine" is haunting. Would love to see footage of Elvis recording this album at the studio in Memphis.
Good for background music.
I get My Bloody Valentine and My Chemical Romance mixed up. I don't think either are my scene.
Thought I would get into this more. Sounded like a parody of 70s country and western albums.
A sometimes forgotten side act of the Grunge era. Raises the "is it better to burn out to fade away" perpetual question of pop music. Probably more a consequence of naming yourselves "Meat Puppets." I usually put them in the same bin as "Butthole Surfers" -- serious musicians who made the mistake of taking the bait to name themselves as a novelty act.
I had forgotten about "Lake of Fire" and "Plateau." These were staples of my teen radio years. Still surprisingly good. Makes me want to track down their more work since. Seems like they have gone the Flaming Lips route of continuing to produce and tour -- but maybe with replaced members of the lineup.
Not a big jazz fan. But always okay with putting Monk on.
The title track instantly transports the listener back to the time it was released, and yet still feels so modern.
Not even the legendary Kevin Shields could hold a candle to the cherubic fuzzscapes of a lush Radiohead album.
The reason I am loving this album list is because of The Monks and particularly the few songs from this album available on Spotify. I doubt I would have hearf of this band otherwise.
I'm sure this double album is pure gold for the true Nitty Gritty Dirt Band fans out there.
Every Costello album on this list makes me wonder "What point of my life did I become a Costello fan and never realized it?" I remember being turned off at some point in my teen grunge era, but now every song hits me. This must be like birdwatching and WWII history. Sneaks up on middle age guys.
Cool music history gaps filled in.
An okay listen. Started to sound repetitive and too similar to other artists.
40 years later and every song still feels perfect and new.
This came out when my wife and I were moving from a serious relationship to a no, seriously, forever realization. Re-listening to the songs is driving around Seattle pre-wedding, pre-kids, and pre-forever. Makes me smile to hear those memories all over again.
Another for the "What If..." situations. If Queen Latifah had been producing in a later era, would she have had more support in the industry and from the audience?
The collab with De La Soul is hilarious.
A few of the fillers are cringe, but the hits are still hits. The run of Man in the Mirror, Dirty Diana, and Smooth Criminal have given parody writers and Ryan Reynolds a lifetime of material.
4 stars for being a good, not great, Bowie album. But then Panic in Detroit drops in and now we're talking 5 again.
Cool find. Dropping a few of these on a playlist for the future.
We get it. You like jazz.
Just a bunch of dudes trying their best. Ain't trying to hurt nobody.
Cool discovery. Like finding the author that inspired your favorite author.
Rating if you are looking for an 80s time machine to what the music landscape looked like in 1987: 5 stars
Rating if this album came out today: 3 stars
Nope. Not a Steely Dan fan.
Has the music industry amassed so many lawyers and drum machines that a massive project like this would never be possible again? Maybe. Or maybe there is a new horizon where big unthinkable multi-disc 90-song windfalls are more achievable? Listening to Ella F's voice through clear headphones in a quiet room is a wonderful musical feeling.
Our grandchildren will be discovering this album and lamenting that their music just isn't as good as hiking on a spring morning listening to a Van Morrison album like Moondance.
Does this get a 5 star because I wanted to drink battery acid and gouge my eyes out -- exactly as the musicians seemed to intend for their audience to do? I never believed that 28 songs in 33 minutes could still somehow feel like too long of an album.
Good music, I was hoping for more discoveries.
The soundtrack of an alternate universe that could have been the mainstream 1980s.
Difficult to enjoy this album knowing that Tim Buckley was being a deadbeat dad to young Jeff while singing all these songs about sex and affairs. We could have had so much better music from a full lifetime of Jeff Buckley music. Eff you Tim.
I had high hopes for this one. I don't know much about the artist. Loved that she had a recent resurgence from Stranger Things. But this one didn't have any highlights for me. I pictured a young Tori Amos studying every note.
The songs I remember are as good as I remember them. The ones I don't remember, I remembered why I don't remember them.
In the 90's, this album felt like the axles on our collective culture's band van were shaking and the wheels were about to come off. And then they did.
Simple Minds always represented the bland corporate music world to me in the 80s. If you knew you listened to music that sucked and you were looking to loudly proclaim to others, "I think music should be stripped of all that makes it wonderful and alive," then my bet was that you were driving around the 80s popping in a Simple Minds CD. Their earlier Chelsea Girls song is pretty decent. Seems like they sold their souls at some point for a record contract and a room full of synths.
Someday there will be movies made about how Meg White and Jack White resurrected rock music from a doomed future.
Too soon and too similar after Simple Minds
The band you want playing when you walk into a quality establishment to drink a beer and shoot some pool.
I'm not a musician. At most, I'm an amateur music historian. Listening to this gave me a small window into what Newport in the 1950s could have been like. It's interesting to imagine what the music, race, and cultural exchanges between Duke Ellington's audience and the Newport crowd could have been like. Listen to the crowd getting upset when Father O'Connor suggests the band might be done. The crowd wants more. I think the 1950s were more complicated than people expect.
Not as bad as I was expecting.
Talking Heads > Peter Gabriel > The Police > Wang Chung
Understandably a tough album to love. Released in March 1987 between the polished slickness of albums like Peter Gabriel's "So" and the packaged rebellion of GnR's "Appetite for Destruction." It's very easy to see how the Butthole Surfers were trying to be anti-commercial to the point of being unlistenable. Anything to avoid making the music industry happy.
When listening to "U.S.S.A." can you hear a demented Beatles "Back in the USSR"? Or the early influence on the White Stripes?
Now go listen to their one MTV hit, "Pepper" from 1996's Electriclarryland. The early ingredients from "Locust..." are all there. Did they make a listenable track on purpose or by accident?
