1001 Albums Summary

An angry, eloquent punk-pop tunesmith with a hell of a band to drive the bangers. Favorite track: Radio, Radio (which also contains the best lyric: "And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools trying to anesthetize the way that you feel"). Honorable mention: Lipstick Vogue (madman drummer), Pump It Up.

I may have listened to this album more than any other in my life...it's one of rock 'n' roll's goats. It's a miracle that this rag tag band of drunk and high degenerates were able to take a break from their LA sleazeball lifestyle to capture the level of focus and clarity on this record. Slash and Izzy with all-time guitar interplay. Nobody with the range or power dynamics of Axl here. Favorite track: They throw the molotov with the opening guitar notes of Jungle, immediately followed by Axl letting the world know that his is the one that says bad MF on it. This one still rules from start to finish every time it comes on. Slash isn't quite in the top level of the rock 'n' roll soloist Hall of Fame pyramid with Hendrix, Page, and EVH...but he's in the tier right below with Angus, Joe Perry, etc. In the immortal words of my daughter when she was six years old about the Paradise City outro: "Slash doesn't wanna slow down."

Dropping the horny-ass rock n roll sledgehammer, as they always do. Bon's a beast. Malcolm's the riffmeister general. Tight rhythm section for Angus to go apeshit over. "[She had] the body of Venus with arms."

Concrete jungle and Little Bitch (minus the misogyny) are my shit. Great vibes, love the ska rhythms, and for the life of me I can't remember a single melody or lyric having just listened to the entire album. Actually that's not entirely true, as the little bitch riff was lifted straight from brown sugar.

Late Muddy. He sounds great, as does the band. The best songs on here are re-recordings of a few from the 1950s. Recorded in three days.…the way it should be.

Such lush and interesting instrumentation throughout. Paul's bass lines (and lead guitar on the title track and good morning good morning) off the charts. Ringo playing those tasty drums. A Day in the Life is that genius shit. Probably could have left its last few seconds (5:11 mark) on the cutting room floor. I do appreciate the lyrics: "I Never Gucci Any Other Way." 🤪

Chuck that, Nile! Good times is a perfect disco song. Bass line got Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers writing credits on Rapper's Delight. Per Wikipedia, "Queen's John Deacon reportedly used the songs bass line as inspiration for his own bass line for the band's 1980 single another one bites the dust." The ballads are fine…and on a seven song album "fine" can't afford to be making the cut.

Facelift and Out-Bloody-Rageous have really nice grooves once they finally get going...but I nearly turned the album off after its first two minutes (looking at you, "gloopy space synth noise").

Ashcroft knows how to write a good song.

Like a great '60s garage band with Roni and the Ronettes singing. Ballads? We don't need no stinking ballads! Only note: I wish the cheesy 80s synth on our lips are sealed was replaced with a 1960s sounding keyboard/organ. Did they borrow the Attractions drummer for this? #beastmode

If I was the male vocalist for the Sugarcubes I would say, "why don't you go ahead and sing everything, Björk, so that I don't sound like a fucking fool." Nobody else like her, epitomized by the combination of grit and sweetness and range (within the span of three seconds) in the chorus to birthday.

One real song across the first five tracks. Middling until Maybe I'm Amazed and it's like "oh yeah, this dude's one of the greatest pop songwriters ever!" Then the big finish of drum noodling/zen chanting/heavy breathing.

Perhaps the greatest illustration that all you really need to sound big and strong as hell is drums, bass, and a guitar (with delay pedal). Admittedly it helps to have Moon, Entwistle, and Townshend playing those instruments.

Classic Dre production and Snoop at his slinky laid-back best. Has a healthy number of the greatest hip hop tracks of all time, with no filler (besides the always unnecessary, though occasionally hilarious, skits). This is a five star album with a one star deduction for the rampant misogyny (which, arguably, could have been a four star deduction). Dre's go-to high synth sound hasn't aged terribly well.

Perhaps most notably, the album contains music history's best random insertion of a baseball play-by-play announcer, in order to detail Meat's loaf gleefully scampering around the proverbial bases. Meat should have locked Steinman's piano out of the recording studio and told him he only wanted bangers, the result of which would have been one of the greatest rock 'n' roll albums ever. The highs are incredibly high (the rockers, especially every time he starts talking real fast)…The ballads are ballast.

Now THAT'S realer than Real-Deal Holyfield, and now you bachelor degree holders know how I feel. Singer, guitarist, songwriter, bandleader extraordinaire.

“That’s where I got the idea for ... the title for the “Hot Rats” album: There’s a recording that I picked up in Europe that had ... “The Shadow of Your Smile” with Archie Schepp playing on it, and he played this solo that just sounded to me immediately like there was this fucking army of preheated rats screaming out of his saxophone. That’s what it sounded like.” Bill Hader adds his perspective: "Girls do not like Frank Zappa. You can't get a girl in a car and play Hot Rats and be like, 'Willie the Pimp.' And they're like, 'Is there any music to this? Is there any lyrics?' I'm like, 'Oh, that's a guy singing. His name's Captain Beefheart.' And they're like, 'Can we put on TLC or something?'"

Wasn't looking forward to slogging my way through this…Then he started singing and I was like DAMNNNNNNNNN! Then came some Alan Lomax Smithsonian field recording-sounding "song." Then came Mama Roux and I was like DAMNNNNNNNNN! Then more field recordings. Finally, in his greatest contribution to music history, he concludes the album by saying, "Golden teeth and golden tones, welcome to my presence...let there be teeth!" And there was Teeth.

If you're going to call it yacht rock, at least call it yacht rock for geniuses. Michael McDonald backing vox on every song ever, please!

The B.B. King ("singer, guitarist, songwriter, bandleader extraordinaire") of white boy swamp rock. Incredible that CCR released three all-time classic albums in 1969. Keep on chooglin.

Appalachian dulcimer players of the world unite!

A great sounding and well sung bunch of perfectly fine, unmemorable country tunes. Cool title though.

Got that stank on it.

Three wah tracks on Billy Jack: it is so choice. Pure voice. Incredible musician and social commentator. I hear the influence on Prince all over the place. One of many five star Mayfield albums.

LFG.

Pretty good songwriter for a 22-year-old. 🤪

Raw power right out of the gate.

I enjoy Chuck Mangione. Not, however, on an album by the dude who played the Sultans of Swing solo. Your Latest Trick is offensive coming from Knopfler. Not a bad song, just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad arrangement. Get that nights with Delilah shit out of here and turn up the guitar.

Singer, songwriter, banjo-player extraordinaire. Beautiful folk. I was delighted every she intentionally played the occasional solo note outside of the scale (on Revelator, most notably).

wishing well is the best prince song of 1987…other than every song on sign o' the times.

Iommi guitar double-tracked, Geezer on low end, Ward bashing, prince of darkness. What more do you need? Keep it simple stupid.

Wah Wah Watson was the star of this album...which isn't optimal if you're the Temptations.

Missed opportunity at the end of Horsin' Around: instead of Paddy McAloon shouting "HUH!", the album's producer Thomas Dolby should have yelled "SCIENCE!" I liked Bonny and Appetite best. Didn't care for the general cheesy jazz lite vibe overall.

Most bands would kill to have eight hits over the course of their career. Boston went eight for eight on their first album. The poor man's American Queen. 🚢

Apparently spelling has no correlation to a band's ability to rock and roll!

Not my cup of tea, although I did enjoy yes and faster. I'm pretty sure I didn't understand a single lyric.

Now THAT'S how you use synthesizers in the 80s (glares at Knopfler, again). Gore explained his early objectives for Depeche Mode, saying, "My dream was to combine the emotion of Neil Young or John Lennon transmitted by Kraftwerk's synthesizers. Soul music played by electronic instruments." Their next album would be a five star classic.

While I might give the album three stars taking nothing else into consideration (All of the Lights remains tremendous), I have to consider this from earlier this year: Kanye West, also known as Ye, escalated his antisemitic rhetoric by releasing a music video titled “HEIL HITLER (HOOLIGAN VERSION)” on X, featuring Nazi imagery and the lyric “So I became a Nazi, I’m the villain,” continuing a disturbing trajectory of antisemitic behavior that includes selling swastika-themed merchandise and praising Hitler. The video, which quickly amassed over a million views, follows a brief Twitch livestream in which Ye gave a Nazi salute and shouted “Heil Hitler” before being banned within minutes for violating the platform’s guidelines. The zero stars of that so far outweighs any musical value that the result my first one star review.

Slip-not for me. Liked the guitars, the drums when he wasn't overplaying, and the occasional "Dave Grohl vocals."

Rock n roll, baby.

Trump and his goons are the zombie scourge of the earth. Donald, please don't kill my mom by throwing her out of a window.

The original indie band. The original version of the Gallagher brothers relationship. The soundtrack to Wes Anderson (along with Mothersbaugh and Desplat). Waterloo Sunset. Five stars.

Give me that backwards guitar on Book of Saturday every day.

It's not what I would sit around and listen to… But it is what the cool underground kids in college would sit around and listen to.

One of the great "I know I'm about to die" albums, along with Cash's American Recordings, Zevon's The Wind, and Dylan's Time Out of Mind. Fun fact: You Want It Darker's choral intro was inspired by another track 1 album title: Bobby Brown's Don't Be Cruel.

This land was made for you and me. And Charles Starkweather.

Apex Pete. While bookended by two of the great rockers, the album is primarily driven by acoustic guitars. And the incomparable tandem of Entwistle and Moon. The yin yang of Macho Man Daltrey and Lady Townshend's vocals is so rich.

One last masterpiece from the greatest of all time. And what a song to end it on (I don't count her Majesty): all four guys both rocking together and having their individual moment to shine.

Coincidence that they waited to put Busta as the album's final verse? I THINK NOT! Nobody wants to follow that. (Rawr! Rawr! Like a dungeon dragon.)

I hope this won't be another one of those unabridged paranoid hippie monologues I seem obliged to sit through.

Great, simple (a compliment) arrangements of some ol' cowboy songs.

Even on the millionth listen, Limelight still rules.

One-trick pony, but at least it's a trick I've never seen before?

J. D. Considine wrote in The Rolling Stone Album Guide that the record defined the ambient aesthetic while providing a name for the genre. Plus now I feel super chill.

Incredible arrangements.

This was the first album I had never heard of the artist or any of the songs.

Keeping those white boy blues alive.

Significantly schmaltzier than I anticipated...but the lesson is that selling your soul to Delilah can win you the album of the year Grammy over Tom Petty twice in the same year (Full Moon Fever, Wilburys Vol. 1.).

Although Life on Mars is my favorite song on the album, I prefer my Bowie with guitar rather than piano. Give me the main acoustic riff from Andy Warhol or the electrics on Queen Bitch any day

More like skunk butt amirite?

I appreciate her evolving as an artist, especially continuing to incorporate jazz.

Aka "Scottish Strokes by Scottish Strokes."

Elvis is at his best with the attractions. I prefer angry young man guitar Elvis to Bacharach Elvis…And we get some of both on this album. Kinder murder, 13 steps lead down, My science fiction twin, and just about glad are the high points. 15 songs was too much: had he cut four or five of them this would probably be a four star album.

You's a penguin-lookin mf. OG beats by Dre. Poor Eazy...he didn't stand a chance. Welcome to the world, snoop. Just another mf day for Dre. Did what's his name get after you yesterday? The first half of the album is SO good it makes up for some filler on side two.

Steve Howe you elf looking bad MFng guitar genius. Is this nerd rock at its finest?

I have to take back what I said about Yes yesterday: they can have the best British nerd rock title. Steely's the best American nerd rock. Reelin in the years: one of the best guitar solos ever.

An embarrassment of riches, embracing so many types of music from one track to the next: guitar hero rock, string quartet pop, twee pop, Indian drone, 50s doo-wop ballad, and a sea shanty (just to name the first six tunes). Tomorrow Never Knows is the first, and still the best, trip hop song. One of the greatest album covers ever.

Great concept, sound, songs, players, and singing. Heck of a debut.

Jimmy Page, riffmeister general.

Rap at its finest. We need more rappers like Chuck D....but that's kind of like saying we need more guitarists like Jimmy Page, bassists like James Jamerson, singers like Otis Redding, and mirror holders/dancers/foils like Jerome Benton.

Mapping Madonna's pop sensibilities onto electronica and ambient sounds results in an incredible album (and directly leads to my favorite song from the last 33 years of her career on her next album, what it feels like for a girl).

"We looked deep down inside the very core of our souls and there was a little Ringo sitting there. Oh sure, we like telling people it's John Lennon or George Harrison, but when you really look deep inside of Soundgarden, there's a little Ringo wanting to get out." -Kim Thayil

8 songs, 32 minutes, three hits that stack up well against any other trilogy on an album ever, so many memorable riffs. Ed's still the guitar goat here, but also brings that innovation to the keyboard AND writes his most accessible and economical collection of songs. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any video of Roth and Michael McDonald writing I'll Wait.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's the white boy bossa nova show!

Pretty punk rock to call it the Pretty Fucking Dirty tour. Pretty mind-expanding guitars. Sugar Kane should have been a hit.

Insett Swedish Chef gif here.

Hypnotic. I have pretty much no context for this: I don't know what he's singing about (and could only find lyrics in English to one song online). I would love to have a sense of how this seemingly very traditional sounding music fits into modern Senegalese culture.

Shut up already...damn! And I mean that as the highest of compliments.

A great Midwest rock n roll band. Nielsen's the best.

This was good, I enjoyed listening to it, and I love the Detroit roots. It's simply not at the same level as other albums I have rated four stars (hunky dory, brothers in arms, fragile, low end theory, doggystyle, for example).

A perfect album. All killer no filler.

Very listenable (both Common's raps and peak Kanye production)

I mean, that sucked.

Sinead was one of one. 4.5 star album bumped up because she's punk rock. Singing about abortion and police violence/racism...and boasts the best Prince cover ever (yes, even better than you, Manic Monday). Refused to accept her Grammy wins and pissed off half the world protesting rampant child abuse in the Catholic Church (who came out looking better on that one). She would have told the rock and roll hall of fame to go f themselves had she been alive. ❤️🇮🇪

Christmas albums do not get better than this. Am I a hypocrite for turning a blind eye to Spector actually murdering someone? Yes, yes I am. But I'm not holding that against Roni!

Sick guitar on the first two tracks...chef was cooking!

To quote renowned music critic Austin Powers, this sort of thing ain't my bag, baby.

Great voice after all the years.

That's the genius shit. Dead at 45, as terrible a loss as Lennon. Fucking guns. "With the world exploding around me, how am I supposed to keep singing love songs?"

"They call me little tough guy and I play the maracas!"

I thought Merle was born with facial hair.

I always appreciate when guitarists are playing chords and I have absolutely no idea what they are doing. The Strokes (and all the rest of those bands) clearly spent a lot of time listening to this.

He could have never put out another album and coasted on "greatest hits" tours based solely on this one for the rest of his career. Isn't it a wonderful world that that's not what happened?

Impressive debut. Easy to see why she was on Lilith Fair: significant influence on '90s and '00s artists.

My first favorite rap album...and it may still be. Scrub!

If the White Album is five stars, so is this. What makes you think you're the one is my favorite Mac deep track.

Uneven. Really enjoyed the blissful tunes. Edgy tracks not so much.

Just lovely. Could have been released in 1956 rather than 1986.

The horn intro to track nine came on and I suddenly heard Flav's voice coming out of my mouth: "Dammmmmmmmnnnnnnn boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...who knew PE did Rump Shaker!" 😉

The hits were hits for good reason! Incredibly well crafted. I will always be grateful to Lynne for his contributions to Full Moon Fever, Into the Great Wide Open, and the Wilburys (glad he reused the opening Summer and Lightning acoustic part to start End of the Line). And...he had much better songwriters to produce in those cases.

Mudhoney's first single: August 1988. Nirvana's: November 1988. Seems like the two biggest differences were Kurt's love of the Beatles and the fact that they had Butch Vig producing.

A couple nice Eastern-influenced guitar licks. I'm not real sure why it's on the list.

Who had "toy piano" on their Green Day bingo card when Dookie came out?

Detroit muscle. Alice was more of a singles band than an album band...their original greatest hits is a powerhouse. Most importantly, WE CAN'T EVEN THINK OF A WORD THAT RHYMES!

Combines a bit more pop sensibility than usual with the glorious guitar noise mosaic we have come to know and love. Tunic is just a gut punch.

No thanks!

Had never heard Hide In Your Shell before. Loved it!

Couple big '80s lite pop hits here.

Brian Jones's apex...before the swift nadir. Acoustic Keith is the best Keith. Can't believe they left "i'm just sitting on a fence" on the cutting room floor. Misogyny hypocrite alert!

The greatest reinvention from one album to the next in rock n' roll history.

Hipster McLachlan? Let a great singer sing. The Then Again Version of Central Reservation makes me think I better go listen to Trailer Park (assuming that's where more electronica is).

Quite a flex to have Bowie as your backup singer and keyboardist.

Had never heard of this album or any of these songs. They were fine. Cool connection to the soft bulletin and that Levon and Garth are on here.

Helluva title and album cover.

Listening to this 35+ years after its release, it seems pretty clear Mustaine's a crazy-eyed prophetic madman who was way ahead of his time in the subject matter he was writing about. Cover art unbelievably poignant and applicable (bonus points for including actual world leaders, including H.W.). Also, listening to his rhythm parts in stereo, he has the precision of a Swiss watch. It would never have worked for him to stay with Metallica (one egomaniac too many)...and it says a lot that they kicked him out for being TOO much of a drunk. I've never been a Megadeth fan, but this shit rules.

That's my kind of hippie shit (looks askance at Country Joe). Song With No Words is particularly exquisite. A who's who personnel-wise.

"You think one day some fucker's gonna tell you, 'You have a number one record in America,' and the whole world will ejaculate. I stood there in my hotel room, and there was this fax that said, 'You're number one.' And it was, like, 'Well, okay.' It was just another fucking fax from the office." -Lars It's a perfect album. Not their best album, but definitely best sounding. Props to Bob Rock. James's voice is consistently consistently used as a musical (rather than blunt) instrument.

Just a coincidence that No Cars Go rhymes with Let's Fucking Go? I think not!

This Is The Day is a great song with a baffling arrangement.

Sad girl background music.

Great voice and production. Mid songs.

Let's go honky tonkin'. Bring the pedal steel.

Good for them for fighting to record their own songs and play their own instruments. Most importantly, who the hell knew we have the Monkees to thank for the genius that is Del the Funky Homosapien's Mr. Bob Dobalina! I did not know that weird, wild stuff!

New to me and loved it. Dude with the low voice 🔥

This is the soundtrack to the worst birthday party ever.

A who's who of musicians (Linda Ronstadt! James Burton! Ben Keith! Bernie Leadon!)...for an album of ok songs.

New to me and thoroughly enjoyed. He obviously grew up listening to Lindsey Buckingham and Bruce...pretty good influences if you ask me!

One of the all-time great album covers. And the music's good! And Joe Walsh gets a songwriting credit!

Meh.

Strong American mid-1960s garage rock with some great originals and nice selection of covers! Love Roslie's voice.

This seems kind of a Boston first album situation. Every song is great...most of them became hits and still hold up. Also, reap what you sow Dave Coulier. 🤷‍♂️

"This next one is the first song of our new album. It just came out this week and the song is...18 and a half minutes long." What a flex.

I.G.Y. is so good, cheesy synths and all. It's tough when one song is head and shoulders above the rest of the album. Not that the rest is bad...the album just peaks on track one. Having Larry Carlton in your pocket is a hell of a not-so-secret weapon.

Started slow then the North American Scum-Someone Great-All My Friends trifecta hit and turned it up to 11. Fun fact, the working title for Someone Great was All Hail the Glock.

Fun fact: Harvest came out 11 days earlier (54 years ago today, in fact). Hell of a one two punch for all-time acoustic albums.

Lana Del Rey dreams of writing songs this good. So do I.

Incredible idea and I absolutely loved the vast majority of the execution, especially the trip hop beat/tabla/sitar combination (and the chopped vocal on Eclipse)...this would be five stars if he had simply done a search and delete all for "Cheez-E Ethereal Synth" across the album.

An embarrassment of (wildly diverse and pretty weird) riches...and the most obvious signal yet that the solo albums would be coming soon. I love that Ringo gets to close the album with a real beauty.

Primal rage, taut beauty, bitchin' rhythm guitars, earworm melodies.

Too twee for me, although Mayfly is a jam. Also, Spotify decided to play Fly by Nick Drake as the first song after the album...and blew it away.

They frontloaded the hits (and what hits they are!) leaving the second half mediocre. Flowers has a fantastic voice for rock 'n' roll but for the love of God will someone cuff his hands behind his back so he can't play that cheesy ass synth.

Great tunes and multiple lyrics caught my attention in a way that suggested I would appreciate this even more upon further listening and deeper familiarity.

A Joan Jett production!

Better band name than songs.

If you look in the encyclopedia under "genius" they have a picture of this album cover next to it. Some editions they use Blonde on Blonde.

I'm going to have to go back and re-rate the Kanye album on musical merits only for the sake of consistency...and just rate on the music moving forward (not whether the artist is problematic or potentially problematic). Michael's cooking here and It's the Falling in Love is in my top 10 favorite songs of his.

You're twistin' my melon man.

Inject the sound of the Rhodes directly into my veins.

"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

Elvis is #339 in spotify's top artists. Kanye is #20. 🫣

Show me the album with samba do gringo paulista on repeat for 45 minutes and I'll more than likely show you five stars.

Just some dudes playing and singing their beautiful music.

Cherubic vocals over dissonant guitar orchestra fuzzscapes? I'm in!

And then he was dead at 26. Fucking drugs and alcohol.

I like meat! I like puppets! I like Meat Puppets!

Great lineup.

Definitely would have been a headliner for the 1968 Lilith Fair. I do wish the album was called Eli Sunday and the Thirteenth Confession.

It was fine.

To thine own selves be true.

I love garage rock. Apparently I love garage rock with good songs.

2.5 rounded down to 2. Drive still a good song. Didn't know Pardon Me was Incubus.

Just some good old boys playing out on the porch.

Now that's a debut album!

Ernie's guitar tone is downright nasty.

I am not anti synth. But if you're going to synth, you better fucking synth. Like this.

Setting all the obvious hits aside, No Surrender/Bobby Jean/I'm Goin' Down is one of the greatest unsung sequences in rock and roll history.

The hits were hits for a reason.

Sexiest album of the millennium? Would also accept For Emma, Forever Ago and Golden Hour as answers.

1989 forever.

Hard to argue with five #1 singles plus Fat plus Alien Ant Farm's career. Dirty Diana (track 9) into Smooth Criminal (track 10) is a ridiculous flex of a one-two punch. Some dated synths and the non-hits are not good.

Watch That Man is one of my favorite Bowie rock and roll songs and should have been a hit (yes, go ahead and bump the vocal up in the mix just a smidge). Mike Garson on piano was a great add. Iconic cover, obviously.

Five star music. Would be much better with no English.

Great flamenco guitar in Mode D. Appreciate the ambition. Appreciate that he wrote a jazz ballet. Just not memorable and probably too experimental for my taste in jazz.

Enjoyed the guitar.

Everybody's talkin and some other songs.

One lump or two? Def and Mutt at the peak of their powers.

Incredibly strong out of the gate with the first four tracks (plus pretzel logic later). Too much mid to be five stars.

"She ripped her glittering gown/couldn't face another show, no./her deodorant had let her down/she should have used Odorono." Oh Pete. 🤣 They're just way ahead of the curve for a band this early in their career.

Great songs sung incredibly well... and they all kind of sound the same.

10 great songs clocking in at 38 minutes felt pretty perfect. Turn it up! Little bit higher!

They did some cool stuff with background vocals. Case in point, my favorite track was the demo for staring at the sun.

Silver lining: at least Muppets fans everywhere were finally rewarded with the long awaited duet between Sweetums and Animal on common enemy and moral crusade...

Nile and Bernard getting jiggy wit it like the funky kings they are.

I'm very jealous of this debut album.

Nothing like abandoning your child so you can be off doing the monkey rub. RIP, Jeff...sorry your "dad" fucking sucked as a human. Stars are for the music only.

Last step before she unleashed the hounds.

Rawer production than Nevermind, as they wanted. Great songs. Fuck.

I listened to the whole thing.

I have always liked them much better in theory than reality...this album reinforces that: these songs just aren't very good.

My man, Johnny Marr. Smiths>White Stripes.

Smiths>White Stripes>Black Keys

Jazz 🫰

2.5 rounded up to 3. Good thrash. No memorable songs.

OG The Voice.

I thought my favorite song was the 33 second one (because it was the shortest). Then I listened to it again...and it's just as bad as the rest of the album. Worst album yet.

Enjoyable instrumentally. Notable tracks were Animal Lover and The Drowners.

I would put the pairing of bodhi and my old school up against the best two songs of almost any other album presented so far. Of course they would get beat down by paradise city + take your pick. Same with first two Costello albums and any Beatles album, etc. Just saying those are two damn good songs with oh so sweet guitar.

I like rap guy voice. I like nice singing guy voice. I don't care for angry yelling guy voice screaming at me so much.

To make the most obvious joke possible, Cee-Lo Green is not The Soul Machine, no matter how many times he says he is over the course of this album.

Wahtastic!

Dark Side + WYWH = best consecutive one-two album punch in rock 'n' roll history?

The rest of the album doesn't live up to the promise of personality crisis, but a solid set of rock 'n' roll.

They make the leap from Pablo honey….Then proceed to blast into the stratosphere with OK computer…Then completely reinvent themselves with kid A. One of the all-time three album runs. The bends to OK computer is the closest modern equivalent to dark side of the moon to wish you were here. Mark it a 5, dude.

Love me some steel guitar. Great production and songs. All time country voice. Whatever happened to the 28 minute album?

Ray decides to mess around and pretend he's Duke Ellington. A genius, no doubt.

I'm so glad Britney smoked him with toxic.

Pleasant.

What a concept: no hits, no songs I had heard before....just one really good song after another (up until the last track, which I didn't care for).

Spoiler alert: Young and Stills are good at writing songs, singing, and playing guitar. I would listen to an album of them beatboxing. 3.5 stars rounded down to three as a result of the filler songs written by guys not named Young and Stills.

Is this really a Mitch McConnell solo album? He's from Kentucky. He has a tiny broken heart. And, obviously, Satan lied to him.

It's ok if you don't like Is This It. But please don't try to tell me you like rock and roll. Even more than the Stones (!!!) this is what I believe Keith means when he talks about "the ancient art of [guitar] weaving." One of the best albums of the 21st century.

Beck's that dude.

Control to rhythm nation to janet is the sexiest consecutive three album run of all time.

Héroe de la guitarra.

Generational talent. Plus he coined "hangry" in Them Belly Full.

3.5 rounded down to 3. The hits were hits for a reason. Great singing and arrangements.

This is reggae music...

I mean, it's a five star compilation without the orchestra. Cool idea...but it could've been the Kiss Alive of this generation if it was just a regular show.

Queen's critically important shift away from prog.

The three hits are still fantastic. As always, skits/interludes are a damn waste of time.

Glenn Frey: "We just didn't want to make another limp-wristed L.A. country-rock record." Oops! Need some Joe Walsh up in this heezy!

I appreciate the album's musical and social impact. I also prefer Ray singing R&B, not over gloopy ass strings.

They blew their wad on I Had Too Much To Dream (a great tune).

Giving singer-songwriters a bad name for five decades and counting.

This rating does not take into account the Diddy stink of it all.

I did not know that not only did Prima put the definitive stamp on David Lee Roth's defining artistic statement as a solo artist (just a gigolo) 30 years before DLR, but also inspired Roth's entire career shtick with his performance as King Louie in the jungle book.

Good Heads, not great Heads.

Nah.

Mr. Smith makes cursing sound like the angels. Too fucking soon.

Loved the African songs...and wish it was a whole album full of them.

For a punk band, they sure made the (absolutely correct) commercial choice to release California Uber Alles, Holiday in Cambodia, and Kill the Poor.

Enjoyable, not special.

Filthy.

I'm bringing sexy Frenchie back. Serge for whatever reason deciding to have Melody Nelson be fourteen...when album cover image and voice of Melody, Jane Birkin, was 25 at the time. "Fucking Gainsbourg, that creep can roll, man." "Yeah, but he's a pervert, Dude. No, he's a sex offender. With a record. He served 6 months in Chino for exposing himself to a fourteen year old."

Good background music.

I Can't Give Everything Away is one of the greatest "last track on an artist's last album" ever. Appropriate that it was also the last single released just after he died.

I can see why, on its completion in 1974, Dion effectively disowned the record, stating that the production made it sound like "funeral music" (thank you wikipedia).

Is that Bill Murray singing on this? But seriously, beautiful arrangements, harmonies, and singing from Brian. I am happy for him that he was able to finish this. This rating reflects the fact that Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains had already existed for ~45 years.

Hell of a band.

Thought we already had this one...still four stars.

Best, and horniest, album of the 1950s…even if it's a bit of a cheat including a number of previously released hit singles.

Get on the Love Trane.

Easily five stars had it been a single album.

The wild thing is even if you set aside the three big (two huge) hits, it's still a five star album.

Enjoyed it.

"That thirteen-month tour behind Ritual was half the reason we wound up unable to stand one another. The other half is that I am an intolerable narcissist who can't get along with anyone." - Perry Farrell

The most illustrative album of the last 30 years of American rage, misery, fear, sexual frustration, and lack of belonging. AKA the sentiments which made school shootings normal, two Trump terms possible, and David Bowie scream "I'm afraid of Americans."

So sad, so beautiful.

If we got two of the top five albums of the 1980s back to back…Would that be cool? The track sequencing is so Prince. Let's go crazy is a no-brainer opening track. But then he zags with take me with you, the beautiful ones, computer blue, and Darling Nikki. Then you flip to the B side and get when doves cry, I would die 4 you, baby I'm a star, and purple rain. What a fantastic little weirdo!

The hornier precursor to Purple Rain. He was clearly fully leveled up with 1999 and Little Red Corvette.

Formative indie sound.

Great voice. I love good pop music, which this is not.

Love her harp playing (hence the two stars). A voice only a mother could love and too twee by half lyrics.

What's cooler than being cool? Other than being kind of blue, of course…

Geek lightning in a bottle.

Sexy time!

Best rock and roll album ever?

It's not more "pop" (other than Here Comes Your Man), but it's easily their most accessible album.

Old school! Appreciate this pioneer.

I love that Mould influenced Nirvana, then Nevermind inspired this.

Jimmy Page, you glorious bastard.

She ain't the queen for nothing.

Only Morrissey gets away with writing a great love song called "you're the one for me, fatty." Except Freddie Mercury and Prince.

Saved Aerosmith's career. First use of the phrase "bust a move" in Is It Live (wiktionary.com inaccurately credits Beastie Boys later in 1986, so go ahead and update that)? Chuck D considers Raising Hell to be the greatest hip-hop album of all-time, and the reason he chose to sign with Def Jam Records.

Cowboys deserve songs about them to listen to, too.

3.5 down to 3. Enjoyed the 80s shimmery guitars.

Every day I'm chooglin'. Why not five stars (as I would have expected)? Two transcendent, band-defining songs (eight minutes), one fantastic cover (just shy of three minutes), and four serviceable songs to round out the remaining 22 minutes. I'm totally fine with a five stars 33 minute album…but not with that ratio of filler.

Friends don't let friends sing and play out of tune.

This started out as a great instrumental album…And then they started singing.

Morello figured out a way to make guitar solos sound fresh.

They just don't write 'em like "The Chase is Better Than the Crabs" anymore.

Back with another one of those block rocking beats!

Don't have to listen to it...because it's a five. And I'm going to listen to it...because it's a five.

Duane and Dickey together now you know you're in trouble.

3.5 down to 3.

Did I hear an "odelay"?

Blackmore, baby. 4.5 down to a 4.

Would have benefited from the other six sex dwarves showing up.

Good, not great.

Always best with Frusciante.

The first two songs are so huge and define that time. I like Sometimes. The rest is filler. Her Greatest Hits gets five stars.

Clapton.

Father and Son still hits, even if a bit maudlin.

Samplelia.

Willie should have called the album "Ain't No Demo," per his quote to the pissed record exec. Might be a five had he written all the songs.

A better album cover than album.

This Woman's Work is still a gem.

"Liam and me, we're going to fuck you up." -Jesus (Noel) Quintana

Randomly solved a years-long mystery. Really liked a song I had never heard on the radio years ago but had no idea who it was or what it was called. Today I learned it was (Get a) Grip [on Yourself] by The Stranglers. My advice, per usual: get rid of the cheesy synths and turn up that punk rock guitar.

All the songs kind of sound the same… But what a great sound. And what a great voice.

Rod and Woody just having fun kicking it and playing the tunes they want.

From KLOF Mag: "[The Toures] wasted no time in heading south to Bamako, where the decision was taken to play music together, partly to offer a little entertainment to other refugees from the north, and partly as an act of defiance against the imposition of the culturally suppressive and frankly ludicrous ideas that music was sinful and had no place in Mali. To quote Garba, 'The world without music? It would be a prison, right?'" https://klofmag.com/2015/02/songhoy-blues-music-in-exile/

News flash: Paul Rodgers has a great rock n roll voice.

Shara Nelson: hell yes; Horace Andy: hell naw.

I feel like I'm SUPPOSED to give this a five...but it's not. Big props for yelling Nevermind repeatedly in Blueprint a year and a half before, well, you know.

Although I gave this, Repeater, and Blue Lines four stars, this is simply at a higher level musically and lyrically. Also, there are very few voices I would rather listen to than Billy Bragg.

The freak, it's chic. Plus seven other competent songs. Also, Luther Vandross!

I love the B-52's. This is barely three stars.

I probably pick Morrison if I could choose any guy to sing in a band, based on voice alone. Factor in personality, unpredictability, and alcoholism, however, and I'm pretty sure I would quit my own band pretty quickly.

A better guitarist than he gets credit for. Talk box sighting!

Um, featuring cheech and chong! Larry Carlton goes on a real heater, playing guitar on the rest of Joni's 70s albums AND, much to Jay's chagrin, four incredible Steely Dan albums over the same period.

One of my all-time great concert memories is Lenny at the HORDE festival jumping on top of the mixing board to have a singalong to the end of Let Love Rule. 3.5 down to 3.

Perhaps some of the greatest – and most juvenile – opening lyrics to any album ever.

It obviously starts with Reed's songs, lyrics, and voice. However, Ronson and Bowie level the proceedings up significantly. There are a couple tracks that are two twee by half, but it doesn't matter. Love the tuba.

So this is pretty much the same as Rod Stewart sings the great American song book a couple decades before Rod did it? The songs for pleasant to listen to and I always appreciate Willie's guitar.

Great band who I should listen to more frequently.

Props for relatively early collage creativity...AND Tomorrow Never Knows had been out for a while at that point. I also appreciate lyrics referencing gay prostitution on 42nd St and media manipulation about the Summer of Love. Also, band name is a pretty good middle finger to The Man!

Journalist Dave Marsh: "there are few moments in the repertoire of recorded rock where a singer or writer has reached so deeply into himself that the effect of hearing them is akin to witnessing a murder, or a suicide...to me, 'Layla' is the greatest of them."

Like the Doors, there's a singer with a great voice and some interesting guitar and keyboards. Unlike the Doors, they just don't have the songs.

I really enjoyed this. What a wild career. Was this the album that introduced (mostly a waste of space) "skits" to hip hop albums?

I can't think of another band with lyrics like, "If a 10 ton truck kills the both of us, to die by your side well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine" that are set more beautifully to music.

At least a four star album WITHOUT Alive, Even Flow, and Jeremy.

Really enjoyed this. Maybe my first time hearing them other than the fantastic cover of "There She Goes" on the So I Married an Axe Murderer soundtrack. Would have benefited from being five songs and 20 minutes shorter. Incredible band name.

Luther Vandross strikes again!

He's always good.