My 1001 Albums Journey

Albums Rated

3.81

Average Rating

Complete

1036 albums remaining

Rating Distribution

Rating Timeline

Taste Profile

1980

Favorite Decade

Punk

Favorite Genre

other

Top Origin

Cheerleader

Rater Style ?

5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

Breakdown

By Genre

Top Styles

By Decade

By Origin

Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Underwater Moonlight The Soft Boys	5	3.06	+1.94
Achtung Baby U2	5	3.3	+1.7
Fear Of A Black Planet Public Enemy	5	3.34	+1.66
My Aim Is True Elvis Costello	5	3.35	+1.65
Strangeways, Here We Come The Smiths	5	3.44	+1.56
Sign 'O' The Times Prince	5	3.45	+1.55
Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols Sex Pistols	5	3.45	+1.55
The Modern Dance Pere Ubu	4	2.48	+1.52
Violent Femmes Violent Femmes	5	3.49	+1.51
Marquee Moon Television	5	3.5	+1.5

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Smash The Offspring	1	3.36	-2.36
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter The Incredible String Band	1	2.15	-1.15
Manassas Stephen Stills	2	3.07	-1.07

5-Star Albums (15)

View Album Wall

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols

4-Star Albums (19)

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

1-Star Albums (2)

All Ratings

All Mod Cons

The Jam

4/5

What a perfect album to start with. One I know but haven't listened to in a long time. It is very much The Jam. Energy, harmonies, urgent melodies. Not as non-stop frenetic as In The City or This is The Modern World. Does have "3rd album" vibes, in that the song palette is expanding...varied tempos. But still shows evidence of influences, like the Who-like flourishes on "In the Crowd". Overall a solid 4/5

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Elton John

3/5

A classic for sure...we've all heard so many of the songs on the radio. Listening with fresh ears you wonder if this wouldn't have been stronger as a single album. There's some fluff (Jamaica Jerk Off, e.g.) and you have to wonder how much drugs affected decision making. 3 (would have been 4 but too long)

Grace

Jeff Buckley

4/5

A beautiful voice, making a record unlike a lot of the grunge and other sounds of the early/mid 1990s. What's funny is, I don't know that I've ever listened to it all the way through. For sure I heard Last Goodbye on the radio all the time when the record was fresh. And Hallelujah, especially after it featured in The West Wing. You have to wonder what would have come had he not drowned.

Live At The Harlem Square Club

Sam Cooke

5/5

A great voice, memorable songs. You know every one of them even if you aren't a huge music fan.

Rumours

Fleetwood Mac

5/5

What is there to say about a record that, if you grew up at a certain time, you heard every song on the radio for many months. A classic album, a breakup album, a heartbreak album

It's Too Late to Stop Now

Van Morrison

4/5

An all-time great "white boy soul" voice, who at his height was an electric performer. He may have turned into an irascible crank in old age, but back at the time of this record he was an irascible genius performer. A crack band behind him that can handle soul, blues, jazz, funk. These must have been amazing shows to have been at.

KIWANUKA

Michael Kiwanuka

4/5

Oooh, something I've not only not heard, but haven't heard of. First impressions...70s soul vibes, 70s atmospheric, experimental, moody vibes, but modern touches...melodic, funky, fun. Sometimes sounds like the score to a film, which...

Grievous Angel

Gram Parsons

4/5

What could have been. An amazing voice, beautiful songs, riding the crest of a sound that he was born to be part of.

Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

TV On The Radio

3/5

A band I knew of but didn't listen to much, as they din't grab me right away. Listening to this I'm reminded of the early aughts. It's fine, nothing stands out for me. I don't fully get the hype but I can see why people like them.

Tusk

Fleetwood Mac

3/5

How do you follow up one of the biggest selling albums of all time? With a sprawling double album that takes forever to make and costs more than $1 million, of course. Add in dysfunctional band dynamics, the creative stress of trying not to repeat the formula for success...you get Tusk. It's still the Mac of the Rumors era (Over and Over, Sara), or even pre-Rumors (Think About Me) but it's also Buckingham wanting to try new things (The Ledge...different). And it's Buckingham's megalomania. It both works as an interesting creative endeavour and a monument to self-indulgent 1970s excess. Listening with fresh ears it's...not bad. Maybe would have been better as a single album, but the double album serves as an insightful document as to the band's mindset of the time.

The Modern Dance

Pere Ubu

4/5

Not the easiest of listens....full-on late 70s art punk. David Thomas had one of music's most distinctive and unique voices and presences. Like Ohio contemporaries Devo, a band whose music was completely suffused with art and experimentation. Though I know a handful of Pere Ubu songs, I haven't listened to a full album of theirs in years, and never this one. The album starts off with the great 1-2 punch of Non-Alignment Pact and Modern Dance. The first all aggro and in-your-face, the 2nd no less aggro but mixed with arts interstitials and tempo changes. A more conventional band would have made Modern Dance a standard new wave pop hit. Then Laughing comes in and we are in full on art-band territory...noises and squawks. The album continues apace...conventional song parts wrapped in noise and mayhem. The sound of a band following its own muse, playing its own unique sound.

Buena Vista Social Club

4/5

The Who Sell Out

The Who

3/5

Hotel California

Eagles

4/5

How many times have I heard so many of these songs on the radio. Very many...

The Hour Of Bewilderbeast

Badly Drawn Boy

3/5

Big time late 90s indie folk vibes. Not horrible, not great. But very much of its time.

Nevermind

Nirvana

5/5

A classic. Defined a sound, launched a thousand grunge bands.

The Velvet Underground

5/5

My Aim Is True

Elvis Costello

5/5

A seminal record for me. Not a bad song on it. Not every song a 10, but collectively an amazing record. With the added trivia bit that Huey Lewis' band at the time Clover were the backing band, though he didn't play on it.

G. Love And Special Sauce

G. Love & Special Sauce

2/5

Chore of Enchantment

Giant Sand

3/5

Strangeways, Here We Come

The Smiths

5/5

Fear Of A Black Planet

Public Enemy

5/5

The Stone Roses

5/5

Arc Of A Diver

Steve Winwood

3/5

Violator

Depeche Mode

4/5

The Undertones

4/5

Guero

Beck

3/5

Bringing It All Back Home

Bob Dylan

5/5

Wild Wood

Paul Weller

4/5

Private Dancer

Tina Turner

3/5

Garbage

3/5

Underwater Moonlight

The Soft Boys

5/5

An absolute classic, bringing shades of Beefheart & Syd Barrett to new wave kids and forever warpring (in a good way) their outlooks on music. Announced Robyn Hitchcock as a talent of note, and Kimberley Rew as an understated guitar hero.

Brutal Youth

Elvis Costello

3/5

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

4/5

Marquee Moon

Television

5/5

Unique for its time, an angular almost prog-rock take on the punk/post-punk New York scene. Led by two of the finest guitarists for come out of that scene.

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

The Incredible String Band

1/5

Is that Nico on lead vocals? (I know it's not, but the resemblance is uncanny)

Smash

The Offspring

1/5

Manassas

Stephen Stills

2/5

Achtung Baby

5/5

Sign 'O' The Times

Prince

5/5

Foxbase Alpha

Saint Etienne

3/5

Their debut, from 1992. Electronic pop of the time that channels British electro-pop sounds of Pet Shop Boys, Bronski Beat, New Order and others, with rave vibes, house vibes and other dance music shades. Girl VII especially has melodic shades of the Pet Shop Boys song “West End Girls”. “People Get Real” has dreamy pop over electronica drums and grooving bass line At 15 songs, 58 minutes a prime example of the CD bloat endemic to the 1990s. This could have been a super tight single album of about 45 minutes. Some songs could have been fun b-sides, like “Stoned to Say The Least” or “Like the Swallow”. Overall a fun listen from a band I’ve known of but never spent much time with.

That's The Way Of The World

Earth, Wind & Fire

4/5

Tracy Chapman

4/5

The xx

4/5

Rock 'N Soul

Solomon Burke

3/5

At Budokan

Cheap Trick