My 1001 Albums Journey

Albums Rated

3.39

Average Rating

Complete

995 albums remaining

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Taste Profile

1960

Favorite Decade

Jazz

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5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

Breakdown

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By Decade

By Origin

Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Bone Machine Tom Waits	5	2.85	+2.15
Copper Blue Sugar	5	2.97	+2.03
Either Or Elliott Smith	5	3.39	+1.61
Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols Sex Pistols	5	3.45	+1.55
Oar Alexander 'Skip' Spence	4	2.46	+1.54
Suicide Suicide	4	2.46	+1.54
Moss Side Story Barry Adamson	4	2.52	+1.48
Exile On Main Street The Rolling Stones	5	3.6	+1.4
California American Music Club	4	2.69	+1.31
Dummy Portishead	5	3.71	+1.29

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Ready To Die The Notorious B.I.G.	1	3.36	-2.36
The Wall Pink Floyd	2	4.14	-2.14
Destroyer KISS	1	2.86	-1.86
Hotel California Eagles	2	3.6	-1.6
Gorillaz Gorillaz	2	3.53	-1.53
Bryter Layter Nick Drake	2	3.52	-1.52
It's Blitz! Yeah Yeah Yeahs	2	3.49	-1.49
From Elvis In Memphis Elvis Presley	2	3.35	-1.35
Red Headed Stranger Willie Nelson	2	3.35	-1.35
Nebraska Bruce Springsteen	2	3.31	-1.31

Artists

Favorites

Artist	Albums	Average
David Bowie	3	4.33

5-Star Albums (9)

View Album Wall

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols

1-Star Albums (2)

All Ratings

Tea for the Tillerman

Cat Stevens

4/5

Blue Lines

Massive Attack

4/5

Africa Brasil

Jorge Ben Jor

3/5

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

5/5

Buena Vista Social Club

4/5

Sunday At The Village Vanguard

Bill Evans Trio

3/5

Protection

Massive Attack

4/5

More Songs About Buildings And Food

Talking Heads

3/5

Nebraska

Bruce Springsteen

2/5

Truth

Jeff Beck

4/5

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips

3/5

Time (The Revelator)

Gillian Welch

4/5

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

4/5

Untitled (Black Is)

SAULT

3/5

Are You Experienced

Jimi Hendrix

5/5

Let It Bleed

The Rolling Stones

4/5

The Last Broadcast

Doves

2/5

California

American Music Club

4/5

Dummy

Portishead

5/5

Live!

Fela Kuti

4/5

Shake Your Money Maker

The Black Crowes

3/5

From Elvis In Memphis

Elvis Presley

2/5

Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys

5/5

Da Capo

Love

3/5

Either Or

Elliott Smith

5/5

It's Blitz!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

2/5

Born In The U.S.A.

Bruce Springsteen

3/5

Siembra

Willie Colón & Rubén Blades

3/5

Odessey And Oracle

The Zombies

4/5

Catch A Fire

Bob Marley & The Wailers

4/5

Oar

Alexander 'Skip' Spence

4/5

Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1

George Michael

2/5

Destroyer

KISS

1/5

Exile On Main Street

The Rolling Stones

5/5

Scott 2

Scott Walker

3/5

The Boatman's Call

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

2/5

Paranoid

Black Sabbath

4/5

You've Come a Long Way Baby

Fatboy Slim

3/5

3 Feet High and Rising

De La Soul

4/5

Tago Mago

Can

4/5

Hotel California

Eagles

2/5

Common

3/5

Machine Gun Etiquette

The Damned

4/5

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Beatles

4/5

The Band

4/5

Basket of Light

Pentangle

3/5

Red Headed Stranger

Willie Nelson

2/5

At Mister Kelly's

Sarah Vaughan

3/5

Brothers

The Black Keys

3/5

Interesting to see that this one's average rating has fallen significantly - has there been a bit of a backlash against these guys? Some of the negative reviews mention car commercials and the like, so maybe that has been a factor. It is easy to see why this would appeal to ad-makers. The songs have an immediacy and a bit of punch. It all sounds a bit processed, though, and lacking in personality. My overall feeling was that this is good but not very lovable

Copper Blue

Sugar

5/5

An old favourite of mine, and a touch of nostalgia is probably pushing it up from a 4 to a 5 Hüsker Dü had disintegrated by the time I heard them and Bob Mould's early solo work was good but very bleak, so it was an unexpected delight when his new band turned up with a set of much brighter, catchier tunes. The lyrics are still depressing but this is terrific noise pop. If you want the darker, more abrasive songs from the same recording sessions they are found on 'Beaster': the 'bad Sugar' they siphoned off from this 'good Sugar'

At Fillmore East

The Allman Brothers Band

3/5

The Next Day

David Bowie

4/5

The Wall

Pink Floyd

2/5

I've always slightly avoided Pink Floyd and I'm hoping this project will give me a chance to appreciate them more. This wasn't the best start, though. There are a handful of good songs of which Comfortably Numb is comfortably the best, and I love Gilmour's fluid guitar playing, but I found most of this quite turgid.

Bone Machine

Tom Waits

5/5

Probably my favourite Tom Waits album, above even Raindogs. It is typically eclectic and I love the way he orchestrates such a wide variety of sounds (including whatever a chamberlin is). The tone here is more percussive with lots of banging, clanking noises, which I very much approve of. You can hear the sinews creaking as he groans about mortality. Love it.

Ramones

3/5

Loud, fast and fun, but I guess I like my punk a bit more abrasive

The Idiot

Iggy Pop

4/5

Iggy's collaborations with Bowie are fascinating. This one is more like a Bowie album fronted by Iggy, and I miss some of Iggy's usual energy, but it's good and it points ahead in a few gothy directions

Warehouse: Songs And Stories

Hüsker Dü

3/5

I like this album but I can't say it is a great one, and it is strange to have this listed when Zen Arcade is both more exciting and more influential. This is fine, and 'No Reservations' is beautiful, but other Hüsker Dü albums deserve to be here instead

Dusty In Memphis

Dusty Springfield

4/5

Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division

4/5

A familiar pleasure, but doesn't quite connect with me the way it did when I was young. Still great, of course, and hugely influential

1977

Ash

3/5

Bryter Layter

Nick Drake

2/5

Nick Drake's reputation has risen over the years, climbing from a deserved reappraisal to being lauded as a tragic lost genius. I don't honestly think his music quite matches up to the mythology. Some people dislike the ornate production on this one. Personally I think it makes the most of some fairly slight material. There are not many memorable songs here (although I do love 'Northern Sky'). His singing is lifeless and his lyrics are not very interesting - it is just standard English pastoral with surprisingly little emotional connection to what we know of his life I will give a better score to Pink Moon, where his music finally linked up more with his feelings, but as doomed singer-songwriters go I don't think he had the talent of an Elliott Smith

Tidal

Fiona Apple

3/5

Moss Side Story

Barry Adamson

4/5

Enjoyable and atmospheric, I love these kind of soundscapes

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme

Simon & Garfunkel

3/5

Pretty good, if a bit sweet for my tastes. I can't argue with Homeward Bound and For Emily is lovely (I don't mind some sweetness). The dig at Bob Dylan seemed slightly incongruous

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul

Otis Redding

4/5

This is great. The only reason I am not quite giving five stars is because it is mostly covers

Call of the Valley

Shivkumar Sharma

3/5

Glad to be introduced to this and there may be moods in which I want to revisit it, but not very often

Suicide

4/5

The fire alarm at work was malfunctioning today and it sounded a bit like this. I mean that in a good way as these guys knew how compelling an ominous drone can be. I could have done without the cheap jump scares and lewd groans - I see Rolling Stone's original review called it 'absolutely puerile', and I can't disagree - but this is still a unique and impressive record

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

4/5

These are mostly songs I don't like but in the best possible versions. That makes it tricky to rate. I'm guided by two considerations: i. I'm going to have to hear these songs anyway, so they might as well be done well ii. It's Christmas Go on then... 4 stars

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

Public Enemy

4/5

Being more of a rock fan, I kind of regret the way rock has declined relative to other genres like hip-hop. But this is the kind of hip-hop I would have been happy to give way to - loud, angry and articulate, with a sound as confrontational as the lyrics

Scum

Napalm Death

2/5

I kind of enjoyed this, even if some of that enjoyment was amusement. I preferred the first side which is more varied and sometimes closer to hardcore punk; side two is more consistently grinding. Neither set of vocals does anything for me. I'm glad to have listened to it but not often likely to return

Gorillaz

2/5

I never really got the hype for this. Albarn was obviously trying out new ideas but I don't think things had really gelled yet. Demon Days is better

Ready To Die

The Notorious B.I.G.

1/5

Autobahn

Kraftwerk

4/5

One thing I like about this is the way it takes the icy, alien sounds and turns them into something as everyday as a car journey

Rage Against The Machine

4/5

Subtle as a brick, but bricks work just great

The Low End Theory

A Tribe Called Quest

4/5

Station To Station

David Bowie

4/5

I'm hovering between a four and a five here. I mean, it is really, really good and shows such a range of styles that Bowie was working with. The title track is absolutely great. This album doesn't quite settle into one of my favourites though, and it has some of Bowie's most theatrical vocals (which is a side of him I like less). So I'm going keep the five stars for a couple of his other albums and just give four to this one.

Movies

Holger Czukay

3/5

This is much more playful than Can and occasionally strays too far into silliness, especially on the opening track. I enjoyed the rest though, particularly 'O Lord, give us more money' which deserves a favourable response from the Lord

Homework

Daft Punk

2/5

Too shiny for me. And too precise

Hunky Dory

David Bowie

5/5

Alien Lanes

Guided By Voices

3/5

This is so close to being my kind of thing. I like the roughness of it. I like the readiness to try out ideas. I didn't think I could complain that the songs are too short. But... they are too short, and I wish some of them had been given a bit more space to grow. I might have loved it then

Paul Simon

4/5

You can hear him start to branch out from Simon & Garfunkel here, with a wider range of influences. I particularly liked 'Peace Like a River' which I had never heard before

Deloused in the Comatorium

The Mars Volta

3/5

Beauty And The Beat

The Go-Go's

4/5

As a Brit, I am more familiar with Fun Boy Three's version of Our Lips Are Sealed, which has a much more sombre feel. I like both, and I guess I knew Jane Wiedlin could write a sparkling pop tune, as she did with Rush Hour. The more joyful take on Our Lips Are Sealed is typical of the album's mood. It's just a really fun album with most tracks matching up to the singles.

Nevermind

Nirvana

4/5

Long time since I last listened to this. I always thought it was good but overrated. I would now say it is very good but overrated

Bluesbreakers

John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers

3/5

I am not fond of Clapton for various reasons but he is good here. The drum solo less so. White people playing the blues? One of these reviews said it is like a white British person in 2010 covering 1990s gangsta rap. I can see their point... but rap is a genre much more built on recounting your personal experience. Blues has always had far more standard songs, so it is hard to argue that you have to have lived them to sing them. And aren't some of them relatable enough outside their origins? One of the reasons why black American musicians found an appreciative but largely white audience in 1960s Britain is because divisions between races were less stark in the UK. The notion that black and white people should restrict themselves to certain kinds of music would have been quite alien here. So which aspect of US culture should we have appropriated: the blues? or the racial segregation of music?

(What's The Story) Morning Glory

Oasis

3/5

Some of these songs are still inescapable thirty years later and I might be downrating it a bit because they are so overplayed. On the other hand, I was quite lukewarm about them at the time as well.

Appetite For Destruction

Guns N' Roses

3/5

Tracy Chapman

4/5

Lazer Guided Melodies

Spiritualized

3/5

This seems like a real step forward from Spacemen 3, with a wider array of instruments and a dreamier, blissful feel. They got even better with Ladies and Gentlemen... I was hovering between 3 and 4 but have rounded it down for spelling. That may seem harsh, but with no half stars available there are bound to be some narrow calls. Zorry Jazon

Definitely Maybe

Oasis

4/5

Bit surprised to see 'What's the Story?' scoring higher. This is better, and came before they got too irksome

At Budokan

Cheap Trick

2/5

I was aware of Cheap Trick but I don't think I had ever heard anything by them. At first I was puzzled by the 'pop rock' label because the first side just sounded like humdrum rock, about on a par with Status Quo. The second side had a couple of better songs but overall it wasn't great.

Happy Trails

Quicksilver Messenger Service

3/5

Didn't know much about Quicksilver Messenger Service. Some kind of hippy jam band. I like Bo Diddley though, and was intrigued that the whole first side of this album is listed as a song suite based on the wondrous 'Who Do You Love?' Turns out it is just an extended live jam which soon ran out of steam. Oddly, though, I enjoyed the bit where they seemed to get bored and just experimented with some different guitar sounds. Side two started with another Bo Diddley cover: slowed down again but with more bite. Rather good and I liked this side better. It had some inventive guitar work, using feedback and sounds that are closer to the stuff I usually like. Not exactly Sonic Youth territory but not so far removed from it. Is there any actual Bo Diddley on this list?

Pornography

The Cure

4/5

I am all in favour of the list including a band's most distinctive album, and this is The Cure at their most Cure

Lost Souls

Doves

2/5

I quite liked the Cedar Room but most of this was really quite boring