1001 Albums Summary

Sparse, somewhat rambling second track, singing doesn't follow the song's melody. Voice is open, honest and raw. Important album, but unenjoyable.

Kicks off with probably the heaviest and fastest song yet, Speed King and doesn't let up until the third track, Child in Time which is Ian Gillan's finest moment as a vocalist. An all out sonic assault which announced the Mark II lineup's arrival with a declaration of war that defined speed and thrash metal nearly a full decade before either gained steam. Quite simply one of the greatest rock albums in history.

Coming in between the bluesy rock of The Man who Sold the World and the magnificently overblown rock opera of Ziggy, Hunky Dory is a much more conventional pop album with a much tighter focus on songwriting rather than the showmanship that became a staple of Bowie's later music. Not for nothing did many of the songs on Hunky Dory become staple songs of Bowie's live concerts all the way till the end of his career, there's a raw emotion that radiates from every song and the short nature of the tracks (only three of the eleven on the album go past the four minute mark) means nothing ever lingers long enough to bore the listener. It's probably the most straightforward album Bowie ever wrote and the one that firmly established him as pop rock's vanguard for the rest of the 1970's.

Varied, clever and skillfully written and thus far more interesting than anything Albarn ever wrote with Blur, this genre-buster marks the start of the most creative alternative rock project of the 21st century. A little uneven (Punk has a whiff of the pop-punk fad of the era) and not quite as polished as later efforts but all of the core components are here. An album very much of its time (was there another time trip-hop was this mainstream?) and worth a listen if you want a look at a route hip-hop and rock could have taken without the rise of Bling and the garage rock revival respectively.

Blending Celtic folk with smooth jazz, dub and electronics then adding in a distinctly pop sensibility is the name of the game here. One World sounds ten years ahead of its time and still sounds fresh and interesting. The Trip-Hop/Illbient bands of the 90's owe John Martyn some royalties because the formula for both genres sits here, 15 years before either hit the mainsteam.

Ambient electronic turn of the millennium trip-hop with a side order of acid jazz. Think Massive Attack with more of a groove. Listening music, not dancing music. You're either going to find it an odd but interesting album or you'll consider it a bunch of aimless guff over a two bar drum loop. Best enjoyed with a good set of headphones and some quality weed.

One of the greatest albums of all time. You're welcome to disagree but if you, you're wrong.

This is straight up one of the tightest and most groovy soul albums you'll ever hear by absolute royalty of the genre. Yes, the title track is an absolutely monster cut (so much so it gets recycled two tracks later for Mo' Onions) but every cover (nine of the 12 tracks on the album) has all of the band members completely in the pocket. This album has the legendary "Stax sound" in full swing and shows off exactly why these guys were tapped up for just about every blues and soul artist worth a damn in the Memphis scene at the time. If there's a negative, it's that the middle of the album brings the tempo and the energy down to lounge music levels of chill and the kind of stuff your grandparents listened to. Thankfully the energy picks up again in the back third of the album and we head home with a fantastic version of Comin' Home Baby. If you don't like soul music or the blues, you'll hate this album but if you have more than a passing interest in either, this is worth your time.

Ask one of the indie heads and NME seat sniffers and they'll tell you this is one of the most important and influential albums of all time. Ask a human being and they'll tell you it is the most miserable twaddle this side of The Cure. Me, I'm a human being.

Willingly making your album sound like crap as an artistic statement still makes your album sound like crap.

Listen to an academic on the subject and they'll tell you Korn's debut album "defined Nu Metal". Those people are wrong, this is the album that defined the Nu Metal sound because this is the one that hit the mainstream like a fucking nuclear bomb. Within a year every label was scrambling to sign any band who downtuned their guitar and whined about how girls hate them and their life sucks. So, what do you get for your money here? Honestly, not a whole lot. Freak On a Leash is still an absolute monster, Got The Life is a decent radio friendly single and the rest is either lost in the glut of copycat acts of the time or putrid and childish even by Nu Metal standards. You should hear it because it's a foundational album in heavy metal's last commercial charge before Rap and Electro-pop took over the world. But honestly, it's not even the best album Korn ever wrote.