1001 Albums Summary

This was my first review for the 1,001 albums project and I initially gave it two stars, but I gave it a second listen and found more to appreciate. Folk rock is not really my thing and the pace here is leisurely for my tastes, but from a technical perspective I think this is very well done. The instrumentation is used to good effect and David McComb has a distinctive and pleasant voice. It's funny to read the troubled history of the making of this album, because I think from a production standpoint, it sounds great. It's varied in melody and pace. I can't go higher than three stars because I don't really hear a song that I want to seek out or put in a playlist, but the album as a whole isn't a bad listen. I'm happy I came back to it.

Despite enjoying The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A when they came out, I somehow missed Amnesiac until this project made me listen to it. I'm not sure why that happened. Maybe I heard "Pyramid Song", didn't really like it, and forgot to check out the rest of the album. 24 years on, I still don't care for "Pyramid Song," but I have chalked this up to a Me Thing. The album properly starts for me with "You And Whose Army?" and I enjoy every song from that point to varying degrees, with the exception of the instrumental "Hunting Bears." There is a cohesion here, and I suspect I enjoy listening to these songs in contrast with each other more than I would listening to them piecemeal. Anyway, I'm happy I got around to this album. There's a whole lot more to say about this period of Radiohead's career, but I'll circle back when the project gets to Kid A.

One of my all-time favorites. Pace, biting guitars, raggedy melodies, head-bopping rhythm section. The songs are short, sweet and full of energy. The songwriting would be more polished on Doolittle, but for bursts of manic, punk energy, nothing tops the more blistering tracks on here. The band also shows that they're versatile beyond three chords and a cloud of dust on "Where Is My Mind?" (the album's most well-known song due in large part to it's inclusion in the movie Fight Club) and the Kim Deal-fronted "Gigantic". Steve Albini's production here that makes you feel like you're in the studio with the band (including some snippets of conversation, unbeknownst to the band members). The loose energy almost makes these songs feel like demos, but in a good way. With everything in pop music so engineered within an inch of it's life nowadays and all imperfections removed, it's great to hear something that feels alive and in the moment.

I'm not a Steely Dan guy, but even setting the bar low, I've never gotten the praise for this album. The only songs I find engaging are "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," the Outlaw Country "With A Gun," and the angular, sinister "Charlie Freak." "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" sounds like warm milk but gets points for extremely corny '70s lyrics ("I've never seen you looking so bad my funky one/you tell me your super fine mind has come undone"). "Barrytown" might have been a good song if there was even an ounce of menace the lyrics suggest in the music. "Parker's Band" is the Dorky White Guy tribute to Charlie Parker to the point where it's almost feels like an insult to Bird. "Pretzel Logic" is the dorkiest, whitest, blues song you'll ever hear. Everything else is so forgettable that I can't even bother to make fun of it. I am certainly not one to criticize vocals too much (I just praised a Frank Black album, for chrissakes) but Donald Fagen's warbling straddles the line between "quaintly charming" and "I wonder if I would like this more if they had a better singer." Pretzel Logic is an album very much of it's time. Steely Dan's previous album, Countdown To Ecstasy, was a commercial failure and they needed to get back on the radio. 1974 top 40 wasn't really a neighborhood for challenging music, so yes, compared to Barbra Streisand, Grand Funk Railroad and John Denver, this was practically avant-garde. But a lot of their music was suggestive of better, funkier and (dare I say) Blacker music that was taking place at the time, and nobody should have needed the White Guy filter to enjoy any of it.

Let me start by saying that I have a tremendous bias for David Bowie. This was the music of my "I feel miserable and I need to not feel miserable" music. The day he died, I went in to work early and put on my Bowie playlist and when the first notes of "Life On Mars" dropped, I started sobbing uncontrollably. I've never shed tears for a celebrity before or since. But this was my guy. A more rational opinion would acknowledge that "Eight Line Poem" and "Fill Your Heart" ain't that great, "Andy Warhol" isn't much aside from a cool guitar riff, and impending fatherhood made Bowie maudlin on "Kooks" (although this a song I sing to my dogs, so I obviously don't hate it) and I don't know what he's on about in "Quicksand" (but the music's great, so I don't really care). I rarely focus on lyrics and Bowie could often be inscrutable, but "Changes" is not that. Unpretentious, pointed prose that comes together melodically and resolves in a great chorus. Life On Mars is a seminal piece of music and never fails to make my heart swell. "Queen Bitch" has one of the all-time great riffs. "The Bewlay Brothers" is a devastating song about Bowie's schizophrenic brother. "Oh! You Pretty Things" is joyous and "Song For Bob Dylan" that serves as both send-up and tribute is a lot of fun. Any album with "Changes," "Life On Mars" and "Queen Bitch" is getting an automatic five stars, but even without those three giants, I think this album might still earn it. One of the best from one of the greatest English-language artists of all-time.

It's 1956 and big band is dead, daddy-o. All the hep cats are listening to dudes like Charles Mingus and Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker (no wait, he died the previous year). That young man Miles Davis was cookin', relaxin', workin' and steamin' his way into the public consciousness. Quartets and quintets are where it's at, Jack. Paying 16 musicians is for squares. Okay, I'm going to stop talking like this. Ellington was struggling when 1956 came around. Bebop, modal, cool jazz, latin jazz, etc. etc. had usurped the big bands of the 1930s and 40s. His band was surviving on European tours and royalties from his previous work. At the time of the Newport Jazz Festival, he didn't even have a record deal. The concert at Newport was a major success, reinvigorating interest in Duke's music for the rest of his life. He signed with Columbia and the ensuing LP (which was mostly a studio recreation of the concert because some of the live audio was missing) was a smash hit. My mom owned it. Some time between 1956 and 1999, some other live tapes were found and the concert was painstakingly put together in all it's glory on a two-CD set. Ellington himself passed before I was even formed into molecules, but I've seen the Duke Ellington Orchestra live several times, dragged people to listen to it who had no interest in jazz and nobody could tell me they didn't have a good time. It's bouncy, it's fun, it gets into your bones. Unless your soul is made from concrete, you can't help but enjoy yourself. Having said that, it's never tempted me to riot and demand the band never leave the stage, and even listening to the concert in retrospect, it's hard to say what provoked the Rhode Island crowd into such a frenzy (there are chapters of the reissue titled "Announcements, Pandemonium" and "Riot Prevention" which... wow! This is definitely a hypothetical Time Machine stop.) Everything comes to a head on Paul Gonsalves's 27-chorus solo (lasting almost six and a half minutes) which is pretty amazing for such a long solo in that it never gets repetitive and also that he didn't pass out, but what he's playing is less interesting than the chaos that you hear rising up around it. Something is clearly happening. Gonsalves's bandmates are hooting and hollering, and you can hear the crowd (who supposedly got up out of their wooden lawn chairs and started dancing in the aisles) steadily join them. The end of the solo isn't greeted by raucous applause--people are *screaming*. And that energy is maintained throughout the rest of the concert, with Duke having to try to calm the crowd down multiple times through many encores and only playing a minute-long "Mood Indigo" as the closer (with the crowd still audibly angry the concert will soon be over) with the band probably desperate to get off stage at that point. If I were to grade this album strictly on musical quality, I'd give it four stars. Duke's compositions are earworms and the band is cracking. But the recording of the concert and the audience's reaction is an experience well worth hearing at least once in your life, and that earns the extra star right there.

I don't like being dismissively negative about music since one person's trash is another person's treasure and I try to glean the positives that other people might see in any given recording. But my honest opinion is if this album wasn't made by Paul McCartney, I don't think anyone would have given it a second thought. The best song on here by a significant distance is the breezy "Jet" with it's chugging rhythm and fuzzed-out guitars. "Band On The Run" is a good song up until McCartney thought everyone would love to hear the name of the song repeated two hundred times. (It's only twenty, I counted, but it feels like ten times that.) Repetitive choruses and songs wearing out their welcome are a theme on this album. On most of them I kept checking to see how much time was left. There is also, if I may be blunt, a lot of self-indulgent nonsense here. "Bluebird" is a song you only record after you have achieved some fame. It angered me to finish "Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)." There's recording a fuck-around track and recording a fuck-around track that lasts almost six minutes. A pox on you, Paul McCartney! Another demerit: I don't think the album sounds good. Not the music necessarily, but the production. I know the album was recorded in Nigeria and there were issues with the studio. Whatever the case was, it doesn't sound like a polished product. This is especially noticeable on the closer "Nineteen Hundred and Eight Five" where Paul's going for a big blowout with the orchestra and the horns and guitars all at once and the production doesn't live up to it. It just sounds like a mess. (I listened to the 2010 Remaster for this exercise, and maybe there's a better version out there, but honestly I really don't consider this album worth revisiting to find out.) A few good points: As I said, I think "Jet" is fine and despite my complaints, I don't hate the title track, but it's nothing I would seek out or add to a playlist. I think "No Words" is pretty good, although I wish he had taken the title's advice because the vocals are the weakest part. It is also, not coincidentally, the shortest song on the album. I like the bouncy bassline on "Mrs. Vandebelt" and the the first half of "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five". Both songs stick around too long. Everything else is a slog, especially "Picasso's Last Words." I'm going to keep track of my least favorite songs from this exercise, and that one's in the pole position for now. In summary, not a great album, at least for me.

A truism I feel about 90% of songs is I'd like them more if they were played at double time. For Leonard Cohen, that may not be enough. His singing is so deliberately slow, it almost feels like he's doing a bit. The primary emotion I get out of Leonard Cohen's singing is somnambulance. The music is secondary to the lyrics here, and I'm not really a lyrics guy. But even paying attention to them, the ideas are not anything that speaks to me. Cohen is a glacial poet who revels in inscrutable imagery and I'm not feeling what he's putting down (although in "Famous Blue Raincoat," imagining Leonard languidly penning a letter to the man who cuckolded him is very funny to me). Anyway, this is another Me Thing since a number of smart people (including many musical artists I like) love his music. I would have given this one star, if not for the angry, growling "Diamonds in the Mine" which I think is terrific. If only the rest of the album was more like it.

Oh hell yeah! I knew of The Gun Club but had never heard any of their music before nor did I realize they were the progenitors of psychobilly/cowpunk, etc. This is great! Short, punchy, catchy songs that somehow combine punk with shuffle beats and slide guitar. I think the songs are better at the sub-three minute time with their longer songs wearing themselves out a bit, but I think that's pretty typical for punk in my estimation. A bit more variety would have escalated this into five-star territory, but even as is, it's a good time.

Yeah, of course, five stars. I imagine there will probably be too many Beatles and Beatles-adjacent albums in this exercise, but this is not the one to take off. Just the variety of impeccably crafted music here is stunning. I think "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is too corny to be anything other than a trifle, but I can't really take issue with anything else. George might be the MVP of this album with "Something" and "Here Comes The Sun" but Lennon is close behind with the shifty, paranoid "Come Together," the trippy, psychedelic "Because" and the primal, minimalist "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." A note on that last song. I have complained in the past about overlong, repetitive songs on other albums, but I love this one. What a hypocrite! The organ stabs, the bluesy instrumental break, the swelling, chaotic three-minute outro. I understand if people don't like it. I've complained enough about songs like this, but I always ride this one to the end. "Octopus's Garden" is terrific. Best song Ringo ever did or would do. Paul may have my two least favorite songs here (outside the medley). "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" was a precursor to a lot of the silly Paul solo/Wings stuff I couldn't vibe with. "Oh! Darling" is fine, I always wind up singing along to it. But he saved his best stuff for the end. I've never really thought of the medley as a single musical work. "You Never Give Me Your Money" is a complete song in it's own right, and it's quite good. "Sun King/Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam/She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" is an impressive string of snippets that could have worked on their own as individual songs (but arguably, they were as long as they needed to be) and "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" is the Beatles saying goodbye. I pretty much like everything here, but my favorite bits are the Polythene Pam guitar bridge leading into "We Came In Through The Bathroom Window" and the orchestral integration on "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight" (shout out to George Martin). Anyway, this is a tremendous album. I've listened to it too many times for it to surprise me any more, but there are very few I'd keep in my collection over it. Abbey Road forever.

The Kinks had some great, catchy songs and could crank out addictive riffs, but almost none of them are here. The praise for this album is confined almost entirely to the lyrical content and that's mostly because the music and production are nothing to write home about. "David Watts" is a cool little song. You should hear The Jam play it. Ray Davies took over the recording and mixing of the album and admitted that he didn't have the skills to handle it. The instruments are often muddy and the whole thing exhibits a real lack of polish. Certain types of music can benefit from a more relaxed production, but this isn't garage rock. The stylistic references (music hall, baroque pop, etc.) feel like relics of a past before musicians learned what you could really do with a guitar. Yes, the lyrics are clever and evocative. It's the delivery method that's a chore to get through (nowhere more so than on the grating verses of "Lazy Old Sun"). I know this is considered a classic album, but I would rather listen to almost Anything Else by The Kinks.

Fun fact: "Rock Lobster" got banned at school dances at my high school because kids would slam-dance to it. Love this album. Fred Schneider and I are clearly on the same page that words are secondary to the music and you may as well just have fun with them. Nonsense lyrics about beach trips, phone numbers that don't work, the moon (which is called the moon) and a woman from Planet Claire (which has one of my favorite funny song bits where after the chorus repeatedly tells us she's from Planet Claire, the second verse says some people think she's from Mars or the seven stars before Schneider angrily sings "well she isn't!") all served as excuses to riff on the Peter Gunn theme or play some surf rock. The music is catchy, danceable and fun and Kate Pierson's and Cindy Wilson's harmonies are punchy and irresistible. Not every song works. Dance This Mess Around gets a little screechy (but still contains the wonderful phase "I'm not Limburger! I'm a limber girl!") and I think listening to all these songs back to back is a little exhausting, but nevertheless, if you like fun, bouncy, unserious music, there are several bangers on here that are worth your time.

Not much to say here. I like it. You give me pacy, melodic guitar and keyboard-driven music and I'm a happy camper. I'm not the biggest fan of Bernard Sumner's vocals, but his voice doesn't lessen the overall impact for me. Can take or leave the instrumental "Elegia" and weirdly-mixed "Sub-Culture", but otherwise every song is good.

Listening to this, it makes sense that there was a theater-like presentation with costumes and staging. It doesn't sound like music for it's own sake. It's music and a show. Like there's something that should be happening on stage during all of these instrumental breaks. I really can't discern the appeal of most prog music aside from "this is different from what everyone else is listening to and also look at us, aren't we impressive in our ability to play it!" And sometimes there can be enjoyment found in that, but I don't find it here. The jams that run through most of "Dancing With the Moonlight Knight" sometimes cooks and sometimes feels like aimless noodling as if they had a set eight-minute time limit and were struggling to fill it. That's how I feel about a lot of these long suites. They're just there, notes played next to another notes. Not randomly, but without any real spark or enough craft to match the sense of grandiosity that seems intended. The absolute nadir of the album is the 11 minute and 44 second "The Battle of Epping Forest" which as a forest is a slog on par with the Ardennes during both world wars. I am done with this song by the three minute mark and there is so much left to go. The next song, "After the Ordeal" is fitting in a way that the band probably didn't intend. Calling this music pretentious feels dismissive, but to me, it felt very much like a case of whatever ambition they were reaching for, it definitely exceeded their grasp.

It may be crass to give a negative review of an album on which the artist is grieving for their recently lost child, but I can't be anything other than honest. I really did not enjoy listening to this album. It's warbled beat poetry accompanied by some (admittedly nice) soulful backup singing, all played over the sort of ambient nothingness you might try to fall asleep to. I play every album in this project in it's entirety to provide an honest opinion, and this one was the toughest to get through, even more so than Leonard Cohen's quarter-speed snooze ballads. That seems harsh given the circumstances, but Cave marketed the shit out of these circumstances, with a documentary, an album, a "live recreation project" (of the album, not his child's death) and a concert tour. There's nothing wrong with expressing grief through art, but grief as commerce leaves me feeling squirmy and Grief On Tour seems like the kind of thing a burgeoning cult leader would show up for to find recruits.

Only know this band from "Bittersweet Symphony." Was interesting to read up on their tumultuous history and how Oasis was involved. The music is okay. I liked "A New Decade," "A Northern Soul" and the guitar freakouts in the Reprise the most. I'll circle back and give this one another listen.

In contrast to your aging folksy singer-songwriter, penning their earnest feelings on regrets and growing old and blah blah blah, here we have Gordon Gano, age 19 (most of the songs here were written when he was in high school) delivering direct, simple, emotional, cathartic statements and marrying them perfectly to anxious, wiry, angular, catchy music. Yes, this album is seemingly about high school angst, but let's be real, the emotions covered here stick with most men throughout their lives. Their greatest hits are all here: "Blister In The Sun," "Kiss Off" (one of my all-time favorite songs), "Add It Up," "Gone Daddy Gone" (the greatest use of xylophone in any rock song ever) along with some less-heralded but equally great album tracks in "Prove My Love," "Promise," "Ugly" and the sinister "Gimme The Car." Gano may have peaked as a songwriter in high school. Their follow-up, Hallowed Ground, was very good, trading teen angst for religious angst (his father was a Baptist minister), but after that the band felt like a ship without a course. Regardless, the first album is an absolute masterpiece.

Let's get one thing out of the way. There's a lot of cheese across this album. "Glass Onion," "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "Wild Honey Pie," "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill," "Martha My Dear," "Piggies," "Rocky Raccoon," "Don't Pass Me By," "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?," "Honey Pie" and of course, the eight-minute avant-garde wankfest, "Revolution 9." Do I think any of these songs are great? No. I'm also not really a ballad guy, so you can throw "Blackbird," "Mother Nature's Son," and "Julia" on the list of stuff I'm not crazy about. Wow, that's a lot of songs to not like, how can I possibly give this five stars? Because there's still a lot of great music left. "Back In The U.S.S.R," "Dear Prudence," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Happiness Is A Warm Gun," "I'm So Tired," "I Will" (the rare ballad exception), "Birthday," "Yer Blues," "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey," "Sexy Sadie," "Helter Skelter," "Long, Long, Long," "Revolution 1" (even if it is the lesser version of this song), "Savoy Truffle" (yes, I like it, shut up), and "Cry Baby Cry." That's a lot of good music, including several classics, so as a collection of songs it's got enough to be a five-star album for me easily. But even the songs I don't like I wouldn't classify as filler. As much as the album was the boys being divided and working on their own stuff, I think the album works as a cohesive listening experience, partially due to the songs being mostly very short (the album averages out to 3:06 per song and that's including Revolution 9) and partially due to some ingenious sequencing, so whatever you're listening to at any given moment, you've got something different coming up next. It is my most played Beatles album. When I had a 90-minute commute to work, very often "Back in the U.S.S.R" would be blasting when I pulled out of my driveway, and Ringo would be singing "Good Night" to me when I pulled into the parking lot at work, and I never got bored or annoyed. I even listened to Revolution 9 all the way through, a track I hated for a long time until it eventually grew on me, at least to the point of tolerance. We live in a time of artists deliberately creating music that is as uninteresting as possible so they can get Spotify plays as background noise. The White Album is the opposite of that. It grabs your attention throughout.

Love RATM, but maybe not a whole album at a time. The music is utterly fantastic, and while I think singer Zack de la Rosa is great in smaller doses, a whole album of him tends to wear on me. Compositionally, this album is really impressive, with a lot of variety in their framework and I don't think there's a bad song in here.

Never been a big Tribe guy, as I prefer my hip-hop to go harder than what they were serving up. Certainly not bad, though. I never listened to this album in full and was surprised at how little Phife was on it. "Footprints" is sensational and "Pubic Enemy" is very good. "I Left My Wallet In El Segundo" and "Luck of Lucien" are fun. Nothing really bad here, it's all pleasant, but other rap artists just grab my attention more.

B.B. King was in his eighties when I saw him live. He played from a couch (and was wearing a muumuu). His fingers weren't quite as dexterous as they were in his prime, but his voice still had power and emotion, and he was very funny when he talked to the audience, so it was a good time. This album is an absolute delight. This was a concert for people to get out of their seat and dance, so every song is a stomper. Both B.B.'s singing and guitar playing are emotive and perfectly attuned to the subject matter of the song, and even his spoken word intros and interludes are engaging. The enthusiastic crowd adds to the whole experience.

I only knew M.I.A. from the singles ("Paper Planes," "Bad Girls", etc.) and had never listened to a full album of hers, so I didn't know what to expect. I liked this a lot! The album is named after her mother and a running theme is struggles that her mother had to go through, but this isn't a dire affair, it's a dance party. "Paper Planes" is here and it's terrific, but so is "Jimmy" (about an infatuation with a journalist covering the Rwandan genocide set to a Bollywood disco number), the bumping "XR2" (an ode to London's '90s rave scene), the sonic assault of "20 Dollar" (which references the Pixies "Where Is My Mind?") and the charming "Mango Pickle Down River" where M.I.A. raps and sings with The Wilcannia Mob, a group of adolescent aboriginal boys about catching fish, jumping off bridges and playing the didgeridoo. Timbaland was originally supposed to produce Kala, and it's a blessing in disguise that it didn't happen. The album is all over the place in it's influences, themes, and styles, perhaps reflecting the global journey by M.I.A. in recording it in six different countries, but M.I.A.'s distinctive singing and straightforward lyrics tie everything together. It's not really like anything else, and that's what makes it great.

A classic. Hard-charging rock driven by the genius of guitarist John McGeoch, accompanied by an able rhythm section of drummer Budgie and bassist Steven Severin. Every song has a dark edge to it: feelings of paranoia, dread, melancholy, uneasiness, all encapsulated by Siouxsie Sioux's tremulous, unsettling vocals. Siouxsie and the Banshees don't get anywhere near enough critical love. Whether you call this post-punk, art rock, gothic rock, or whatever, the sound is distinctive and has a place at the table of great rock albums.

Folk music is not my cup of tea, but I'll give this album two points: It's short (only 36 minutes) and it rocks out a little bit, at least. The songs prominently involve the instruments and they aren't just there as background dressing for Stevens' hippy-dippy lyrics. Even at the short running time, it's still pretty monotonous, but better than the usual singer-songwriter fare. I'd rather they had tossed in a second Cat Stevens album than the umpteen albums of Leonard Cohen that were included.

*headbangs, makes devil horns, shreds air guitar* Good stuff!

Wanted to like this, but by the fourth song I was checking to see how much time was left. The vocals annoyed me, and the backing tracks weren't interesting enough to make up for it. Whatever they were going for her, I just couldn't vibe with it.

Like most double albums, this is a mixed bag. There are some fun, groovy numbers in here and a some forgettable easy listening. Stevie overall didn't radiate with me outside of a few songs, but even at two hours, this passes the time amiably enough.

A critical darling and evidence that music reviewers are easy to impress if you appeal to their sense of self-importance. One review said "the sound of a band taking a mandate to be a meaningful rock band seriously" as in they haven't screwed up their aspirational *seriousness* by sounding like they're having any fun. Everything about this is mid. Midtempo, middle-register singing, middling temperament. Nothing exemplifying happiness or joy or anything to get the blood going, the kind of music you'd go to watch live with your hands in your pockets, maybe silently bobbing side to side to signify that you were enjoying yourself. (I'm being snotty here; I've actually seen The National live and it was fine, they were having lots of fun up on stage; but none of that enthusiasm really translated to this album.) There are a few moments where the instruments rock out a bit and if I'm honest, the drums sound pretty fun on some of these songs, but overall this is like the album version dry Oscar bait.

Manic Street Preachers are a first-time listen for me. It seems a lot of the discussion of this album revolves around Richey Edwards and what happened after to him, but what I hear listening to it is a great punk album, one that (some contemporary lyrical references aside) I would not have guessed was released in 1994. The sound is aggressive, melodical, and cathartic, as easy to appreciate for it's musical elements as it's (appropriately blistering) lyrical content. One of the best discoveries I've made so far with this exercise.

Fun fact: X was the first band I ever remember hearing live, when my sister snuck me into the back of a bar where they were playing. I'm surprised X's first album Los Angeles didn't make the 1,001 albums cut because I think it's at least as critically valued as Wild Gift, but I'm not going to complain too much because I don't really care for either album. The main issue has always been the John Doe/Exene Cervenka harmonies. I just don't like listening to them all that much, and the musicianship on the album isn't enough to make up for it. I actually prefer their third album, Under The Big Black Sun to their first two. The songwriting is better and while the vocals are still not too my taste, they're more suited to the new material and less of an impediment to my enjoyment.

There are three Smiths albums and four(!) solo Morrissey albums in this exercise, and that is way too many even for 1,099 albums, but this is not one that I'd take off. I'm not a lyrics guy and I feel that you can enjoy 99.95% of music without knowing what the singer is singing, but Morrissey's lyrics are rewarding to look up. They're alternately very witty or picaresque in their conveyance of simple, urgently felt emotion. On top of it, the music accompanying them isn't simply a vehicle for the lyrics, and is enjoyable in it's own right. Many of the albums I've come across on this list have had me checking how much longer I had to go. The Queen Is Dead is the opposite. It leaves me wanting more.

Classic album for all the reasons everyone says it is. Some of the best production of any rap album ever, thanks to the Dust (now Chemical) Brothers. The combination of Beasties juvenile (but entertaining) lyrics don't always jibe, but they were skilled and every song is different enough within their framework. There are seams, but overall, there isn't anything quite like this album. But wait, the 1,001 albums list doesn't include Check Your Head?

Eh, it's fine. I like this more than the Beatles' early albums, but it still feels very remedial and timid compared to what they would eventually come up with. Daltrey in particular doesn't sound very comfortable in any of the genres he's attempting. "My Generation" is good (although the stuttering makes it seem like an affectation to make it stand out more) and the instrumental "The Ox" is fantastic, but nothing else is the equal of these two tracks.

This will be one I have to come back to, because my thoughts aren't fully formulated yet. The backing music was better than I was expecting for an indie folk album. Sufjan's voice is cloying on some tracks and fits in well on others. I appreciated the generally upbeat and melodic sound of most of the tracks. It's a long album, and as with most long albums, there's a bit of hit and miss. Giving it three stars now, but I'll return to it for a more in-depth listen.

I'm not sure this is absolutely an album you need to hear before you die, but it's a good time. Dusty started out as a British folk singer, came to America and fell in love with soul music, giving voice to many storied composers of both white and black music. Depending on the song, the results could be maudlin or in the case of some Motown stompers, absolutely electric. This album was a collection of some of her favorite songs, and I think she had good taste. Her voice is well-suited to all the material, and the tracks here are well-produced (although it seems most of the songs on the in-print CD are alternate mixes of the songs on the original LP because the masters are buried deep somewhere in the Philips Record archives). Best song is the scorching album closer (not counting bonus tracks) "Don't You Know," which is an unquestionable improvement over the Ray Charles original, but "When The Love Light Starts Shining Thru His Eyes" and bonus track "Can I Get A Witness" are also great and she ably takes her turn on the Shirelles "Will You Love Me Tomorrow." Maybe not an essential listening experience, but enjoyable nonetheless.

I've only heard a few ska songs that I've actually liked. I've never been a fan of the combination of leisurely pace and rocksteady rhythm that signifies most reggae/ska music, but on top of that in this particular case, the vocals have a really off-putting quality to me. The songs with faster tempos ("Concrete Jungle" and "Little Bitch") are more enjoyable, and the bass on some of these songs sounds fun to play, but overall there are too few diamonds and too much rough. The only other thing I have to add is go for the Deluxe Version (2015 remaster) if you're going to listen to this. The 2002 remaster is terrible.

Not much to say! Good, crunchy guitar rock, enjoyable to listen to.

Some very Beatles-inspired (maybe a little too much) pop that's pleasant to listen to if not necessarily revelatory. I like all of the individual elements of it--the vocals, the instrumentation, the melodies, etc., but the big thing that kept me from enjoying it fully is a really mushy sound, one I have to either blame on a patchy recording, because even the 30th anniversary remaster isn't much of an improvement, and it's the sort of music that really could use a polished presentation to really make it shine. If there is a really good mastering of this album, I'd love to listen to it.

I do not and will probably never understand the appeal of Tom Waits. This is a bunch of world-weary blues crooning from a 30-year old (at the time) who by his own account had a pretty normal childhood in suburban California. There were plenty of unheralded Black blues artists who were better singers and better musicians with authentic stories to tell, but he's the guy who got all the movie soundtracks and critical fellatio because his voice sounded like he gargled cigarettes. To me, this Emperor has no clothes, but there are four more albums on this list to go through and change my mind.

Young, feisty, political firebrand Morrissey isn't as dryly witty as he would be on The Queen Is Dead, but he has found a pacey, energetic sound for a soapbox, powered by the darting guitar work of Johnny Marr, and the results are fine. Only a few sloggy songs keep this one from ranking higher, but the best stuff is very good.

Oh my God, it's the Rolling Stones, certified legends, etc. etc. and this is often cited as their best album, and yet I can't escape how they sound like a very good bar band and not much more on here. It's a solid album, but nothing jumps out to me as a must-hear song, and every genre touched I think has better exemplars elsewhere.

This was an album where I had to be conscious of the release year, because otherwise I wouldn't get it at all. I'm sure this sounded amazing (or at least very distinctive) in 1977, but to me, it sounds remedial. Or maybe I just don't get minimalism. Kraftwerk formed the basis for a lot of music that I like, but it's antecedents have make the music on this particular album sound like a historical artifact. And we're talking 1977, not 1927. I wasn't expecting to give this my second 1-star rating out of this exercise, but that's where I'm at after listening to it. It's not painful, but it doesn't spark any emotion whatsoever for me.

Let me just start off with a disclaimer: This is not a review of Michael Jackson the human being (who I actually got to meet in a business capacity a few years before his death). The things Michael Jackson are accused of make him a 0-star human being, but I'm not reviewing Michael Jackson, I'm reviewing Thriller, and this is an excellent album. First of all, it's amazing how good the original album sounds. I've compared it to the 25th anniversary remaster, and honestly, I think the original sounds better. Just a terrifically produced album, extremely warm and spacious, even without the future advances in digital engineering, so a big shoutout to Quincy Jones and recording engineer Bruce Swedien. Even goofy schmaltz like "The Girl Is Mine" sounds so luxurious, I actually find it pleasant. But "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," "Thriller," "Beat It," "Billie Jean," "P.Y.T." That's already enough bangers for five stars right there, and the lesser known song" Baby Be Mine" is good as well. I'm not a big fan of "Human Nature" or the closing ballad "The Lady In My Life" but so what? Who rates an album by the songs you can skip? This is supremely well-engineered and composed pop music and I think it's reputation is deserved. If you don't want to listen to the man because of what he was, I get it. From the standpoint of having an appreciation of pop music, I think it's unassailable.

Well, I gave Kraftwerk one star for Trans Europe Express and a couple of them have come back with another band name and another stinker. Side One is "ambient music," i.e. the background "you don't need to pay attention to this, just keep on doing whatever you're doing" slop that Spotify is making billions from disaffected people who don't have the attention span to engage with anything for longer than five seconds. Full credit to these guys, they were fifty years ahead of their time. Side Two is better, but nothing to write home about. E-Music is seven minutes of pointless chugging riffing followed by three minutes of what sounds like howling wind with occasional stabs of other stuff. It is a contender for "least favorite song I've heard so far in this exercise," next to Genesis's "The Battle of Epping Forest." What saves it from a basement review are "Hero" and "After Eight," proto-punk songs that are not amazing, but at least are trying to engage, and you can see the roots of some future great music in here.

I feel like I'm trampling on sacred ground by saying this, but I think Otis Redding is... fine? His voice is great, don't get me wrong, but the loosey-goosey, stop/start, rambling style of his approach trades in power for enthusiasm, and maybe doesn't translate as well to a studio environment. What does translate is the backing band: Booker T. & the MG's (RIP Steve Cropper), plus Isaac Hayes on piano, and a ripping horn section pilfered from the Mar-Keys and Memphis Horns. The music absolutely crackles. This is a largely a covers album, but Otis definitely takes ownership of more than a few songs. His version of B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby" is a sweaty masterpiece and Otis made everyone forget the original version of "You Don't Miss Your Water" (who the heck is William Bell, anyway?). He steals "Shake" from Sam Cooke, gives a looser, funkier version of "Wonderful World" and maybe doesn't quite top Sam's version of "A Change Is Gonna Come" but I do appreciate the small-band arrangement of it compared to the ostentatious strings and horns of Sam's version. Otis would receive a dose of his own medicine when Aretha came around to take "Respect" from him, so it's all good. The version of The Rolling Stones "(I Can't Get No Satisfaction)" is less a cover than an interpretation, with Otis abandoning the lyrics after the first verse to forge his own path, but the band absolutely kills it. Fun album, but it's a shame this is the only Otis content we'll get on this list. His album The Dictionary of Soul is also a great listen, as is his Whiskey-A-Go-Go concert album.

A classic album, and a deep one. The title track may be my least favorite song on here, and that's not a criticism. I like "Paranoid," but it's probably the most conventional song and least interesting song on the album. The songs were mostly developed from riffs that the band came up with while jamming, which is very apparent. The songs are very loosey-goosey and extremely bluesy (with the exception of the psychedelic "Planet Caravan") with very little apparent intent beyond "craft a song around this killer riff" and it works better than it has any right to, because the riffs are strong and the added elements work really well. I think this is just due to really good songcraft from guitarist Tommy Iommi and strong embellishment from bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward, and the result is a masterpiece.

Sade is living right. Make an album, go on tour, make a bunch of money, chill out for a decade or so, come back with another album, make more money, go back to your cottage in England and live a happy life, rinse, repeat. The fact that people always show out for the new albums and tours in enviable numbers means she's doing something right. I'm not the best person to judge what she's doing right as whatever this kind of music is (Wikipedia lists the genres as "smooth soul," "sophisti-pop," "quiet storm" and "smooth jazz," and I can only say the last one is wrong, because this isn't any kind of jazz) really isn't my bailiwick, although I certainly don't mind having it on. It's pleasant and polished, and the music production side of me approves. Even though the album is forty years old, it doesn't feel like it needs a remaster. It's not very exciting (to me), but if I were in the mood to just listen to something to chill out, you could do far worse.

I love the Beasties. On my shortlist for albums to contribute to this list when I've finished is Check Your Head (my favorite of their albums), but I'll admit I rarely go back to listen to their debut in full. The album is too much screaming, too many similar break beats, too much Rick Rubin (whose production I appreciate in short bursts) but if I'm honest, about half the tracks I could skip because they're monotonous. It should be pointed out that the Beasties were young, dumb and stupid at this point. The original title for this album was "Don't Be A Fa**ot" (they have since recognized the error of their ways and apologized) but while there are quite a few funny lines throughout, the album is largely crass and juvenile, and not necessarily in a way that makes their protagonists likeable. There was also some startling creativity being hemmed in by Rubin and Russell Simmons, who were conspiring to rip them off, and it would come out after they moved to Capitol Records in the masterpiece Paul's Boutique. The bangers on this album, "Fight For Your Right," "No Sleep Til' Brooklyn," "Brass Monkey," "Girls," "Paul Revere," etc. mean I can't rate this album too low, but it ranks well below what were going to see from the group.

Amiable rock & roll with various drops into a country-ish vibe. I admit, a lot of this went in one ear and out the other, but the more energetic tracks were enjoyable enough ("Monday" being my favorite), and I don't mind giving this another, more attentive listen.

I had heard various songs from this album, but never listened to the full thing. What a revelation! This album arrived in the midst of a lot of tumult: Graham Nash and Stephen Stills had broken up with their celebrity girlfriends (Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins, respectively) and David Crosby's girlfriend was killed in a car accident a few days before they started recording, leaving him often being unable to function. Further tumult arrived in the form of notorious curmudgeon Neil Young. Since Stills played almost everything with a string or keys on recordings, they needed another pair of hands for touring, and invited Young. Naturally, he complained about everything and only participated on half the tracks. This was CSN's version of The White Album, with each member mainly working on their own stuff and only getting together to have other members play the instrumental parts and add other vocals, but it all comes together surprisingly well. I listened to the 2021 remaster, and while I don't think it sounds pristine, the sound quality isn't an impediment to the music. There are a lot of great songs here: "Carry On", "Woodstock", "Country Girl" and the romping closer "Everybody I Love You," but my favorite song is David Crosby's visceral, cathartic "Almost Cut My Hair" (which Stephen Stills curiously wanted to leave out because he didn't like the vocal performance, which is nuts, because Crosby sounds amazing). Anyway, this is a terrific album with a lot of texture and some especially great performances, both vocally and musically. A classic.

Aesthetically, this is up my alley. Hard, fast-paced, guitar--driven, raggedy-ass music. Hell yeah, let's go! There's only one problem, and it's that I don't really enjoy listening to much of it. Every song sounds like it's being run with the reverb switch glued in place, giving the effect that the album was recorded from inside a metal box. I don't mind this technique being used once in a while, but for a whole album, it's exhausting to listen to. The same with Lux Interior's vocals. Fine in short doses, wearing over time. The overall style of garage/psychobilly still holds some pleasure for me, so I can't hate on this too much. A song from this album sprinkled in among other music is fine. But the whole album at once is too much of a specific thing.

A candidate for my favorite rap album of all-time, and one of my favorite albums, period. A once-in-a-lifetime project where the circumstances came together to create something thoroughly unique. First off, this is one of the best-produced rap albums ever, with beats and samples perhaps only exceeded by Public Enemy's "Apocalypse 91" and the Beastie Boys "Paul's Boutique." The RZA lays down a dense, sonic environment that combines Chinese martial arts films and soul samples, with beats that go hard as fuck. The nine MCs had to battle for the right to rap on each track (the scorecard, not counting choruses, intros, outros, etc.: Raekwon 7, Ghostface Killah 6, Inspectah Deck 6, Method Man 5, GZA 4, Ol' Dirty Bastard 4, RZA 4, Masta Killa 1, U-God 1; although GZA and Method Man both got solo songs). This meant a group of young, hungry and talented MCs were competing with each other to get bars and in this case, iron sharpened iron. The verses are exceptionally strong and memorable even today. I won't even get into how influential this album is; maybe the most important album in New York hip-hop history. What matters is that even after 30 years, it's still as exciting and fresh as ever.

I thought Being There was a decent album, but Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is mostly a snooze. Very well produced, and some of the musical choices are interesting, but the vibe is very contemplative and introspective, and I don't need that in my music! I have a child-brain and it wants to be stimulated with excitement!

The first of six Elvis Costello albums that I'll be reviewing during this exercise, and a good one. My perception of Costello is colored by a friend who worked on an American tour with him in the '90s and described him as one of the least pleasant musical artists he had ever been around. Unpleasant or not, though, the man could make some good music. Blood And Chocolate was a return to form for Costello after a (commercially) failed attempt at Americana on King of America. His band, the Attractions, were pissed at him after being sidelined on the previous album, so Costello decided the best thing was to be around them as little as possible, recording everything quickly in a massive studio space far apart from each other, doing no more than three takes and overdubbing only vocals and harmonies. And it worked! The album has a terrific sound (shout out to longtime Costello producer Nick Lowe, a terrific recording artist in his own right who we will... not be reviewing on this list? No Jesus of Cool/Pure Pop for Now People? What?) and despite the breakneck pace of recording, is tightly played. It also helps that the songs are good. "I Hope You're Happy Now," "Tokyo Storm Warning," the creepy "I Want You," "Blue Chair," "Crimes of Paris" and "Next Time Round" are particular highlights.

I gave Something Else By The Kinks only two stars because I didn't care for the archaic baroque pop and music hall styles of most of the songs, and I thought the production of the album was lacking. Arthur is much better in both respects. It's a "concept album" about a carpet layer that was supposed to be accompanied by a television play (that never came about), but what I hear is a wildly varied and eclectic set of music that is all punchy, melodic and well-played (this is the first album without bassist Peter Quaife. Quaife told the band he was leaving and they didn't believe him until his new band was announced). The album sounds fantastic (I listened to the Deluxe Edition) and Davies clearly has a better grasp of production than he did on Something Else. I think the song compositions here were as strong as the Kinks would ever get. Melodic, catchy with addictive rhythms and an underlying harmonic complexity, and providing different musical flavors throughout. If I have a criticism, I don't think the album finishes as strong as it starts. Not a fan of the shrill "She Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina," the cowboy jaunt "Nothing to Say" feels like a throwaway, and the closer "Arthur" is monotonous. That's okay, there's enough great music otherwise to make this a classic.

If you described this album to me, I would have bet it wouldn't be my thing, but I actually enjoyed it. John Martyn is an "experimental" guitarist in that he ran his guitar through the early iteration of an effects pedal. I don't know what his earlier stuff sounded like (I'll investigate at some point) but he had the equivalent of musical midlife crisis and took a year off, going to Jamaica for an indeterminate amount of time and meeting Lee "Scratch" Perry (famous producer who pioneered the development of dub music), and his enthusiasm was rekindled. Martyn gathered together at his producer's farm with an army of other musicians (including, prominently, Steve Winwood) and recorded songs featuring his trippy, spatial, ethereal guitar. And I don't hate it! This album is frequently cited as a progenitor to trip-hop, and I hear that, and Martyn was reportedly blissed out on opium the whole time, and I hear that as well. Honestly, I would rather someone else sang on these songs, but the vocals are just dressing for the music underneath. The songs are at the very least interesting to listen to, and there's some nice melodies scattered here and there. This isn't something I think I would return to often, but I certainly don't mind it at all, and will probably investigate Martyn further.

Either a groundbreaking work of experimental genius or a bunch of nonsense. When I was younger and wanted to sound cool, I insisted that it was the former, but had to inevitably come to the conclusion that it was mostly the latter, although parts of it are still entertaining. The title track tries to encapsulate the feeling of shooting meth and admittedly I've never tried meth, but I think I'd be fine because the song itself is mundane and forgettable and not addictive in the slightest. "The Gift" is one of the most annoying songs to listen to with headphones. John Cale monotonously tells a creative writing story that Lou Reed wrote in one channel, while the band jams in the other. The jam sounds pretty good, but this is not a great way to listen to it. "Lady Godiva's Operation" is one of the earliest songs about a trans person, but don't get too excited. It's about a botched lobotomy on said person, and there's this thing halfway through where Cale sings and then Lou Reed will step in to sing like that last two words of each line flatly at a louder volume, and I can't tell you how much it drives me crazy to listen to this part of the song. "Here She Comes Now" is a light and blissful throwaway, but I have a fondness for "I Heard Her Call My Name" with it's Ornette Coleman-inspired guitar solo freakout. But then we get to "Sister Ray." How you feel the album largely consists of how you feel about this song, because it takes up almost half the running time, and thankfully, I actually kind of like it. Reed's lyrics about drugs and sex are easily ignored (if you ever thought Lou Reed was cool, please consider the repeated line "she's busy sucking on my ding-dong"), but the music, a chaotic jam conducted in one take and left untouched, warts and all, is very fun in a noise-rock way. (The album's producer, Tom Wilson, disagreed and walked out halfway through). Looking at in total, I can't quite bring myself to see it as a work of artistic genius as much as Reed saying "let's use our cultural cache to fuck around on an album because someone is allowing us to do it." I don't think there's anything serious or ambitious here. That it's as influential as it is, is as much due to the talents of the musicians as as any particular artistic vision. I'll speak more on the Velvets when I review their other albums, but honestly I think this is my least favorite of their four Lou Reed-led releases.

As I said in the entry on Michael Jackson's "Thriller," we're reviewing the art, not the man. Phil Spector was always garbage, and his garbage-ness even extended to the making of this album, overworking everyone involved and stressing them out. And while this album is no "Thriller," I wouldn't toss it in the refuse pile. Charging up some Christmas songs with a brisk pace, insistent instrumentation (the "Wall of Sound") and exuberant singing is going to be an improvement every single time. The result is a generally pleasant listen throughout, but if you're not into Christmas music (and I'm not), it's not going to make you a convert. The core of most of these songs is still pretty basic and lacking in catchy melodies that would elevate the production, but if someone was going to make you play a Christmas album at gunpoint, you could definitely do far worse.

When this record came out, I hated it. I felt that it was like a watered-down, overproduced, too polished, too safe version of the punk that I loved. Thirty years on, I can see that none of that matters. It's more pop than punk, but it's ideal pop for me, briskly-paced, melodic, and with the guitars turned up in the mix. That doesn't get you to five stars by itself, but this album is incredibly well produced and mixed, among the best I've heard. The guitar and bass are extremely prevalent in the mix, but still leave room for the vocals. The last minute and a half of "Chump" are incredible from an audio standpoint, there is such a spaciousness in the sound you would swear that it was being played in an arena instead of a studio. The combination of melodic songwriting, combined with an aggressive approach and amazing production make this a special album. It's not a great punk album, but it doesn't have to be that.

If you know anything about this album, you know the story of it. Marvin Gaye was going through a divorce with his wife, Anna Gordy. The arrangement was that Gordy would receive half of the advance and the proceeds from Gaye's next album. He initially was going record a stinker, but found that the best way to work through what he was going through was to bare his soul and make the album all about his divorce and what he was going through. But that isn't what he did. Instead, he just made an album blaming his wife for divorcing him, blaming the judge for awarding her alimony and child support, blaming Anna for calling the cops on him (for not paying alimony and child support), and blaming her for suing him for what she was awarded. Marvin more than once mentions the "obey" portion of the vows, and chastises his ex-wife for not adhering to them. I don't think those were the only vows that were said his ceremony, but I guess he forgot his own. I don't know the entire history behind their troubled marriage and divorce, but well documented were Marvin's drug problems, infidelities, and terrible management of his own finances in that he had to keep touring in order to avoid poverty, eventually exiling himself to Europe because he owed so much in back taxes that he was afraid he was going to be thrown in prison. I'm just saying, it's not surprising that someone wouldn't want to stay married to him. There are occasional moments of self reflection on the album in "Anger" and "Time To Get It Together," but they don't last, and he's back to being vicious on "Is That Enough" and "You Can Leave, But It's Going To Cost You." The last full song on the album, "Falling In Love Again" is an (admittedly, very good) song about his relationship with his new squeeze, Janis Hunter, who he had two children with during his separation from Gordy. Do you want to know how that turned out? They separated in 1979, the year after this album was released. Afterwards, Gaye threatened her with a knife and arranged for their four-year old son to be kidnapped. They divorced in 1982. True love! It's easy to say that Gaye was a horrible person. What he was, was a troubled man from an abusive home who fell into a drug addiction that affected his personal life greatly, to say nothing of being a famous black man in a world that loves to tear down famous black men. That's neither here nor there when it comes to rating this album, which is a loose, meandering collection of stream-of-consciousness R&B and funk. Musically, it's neither terrible nor great, and curiously removed of any emotional emphasis for an album that's so emotionally pointed. Angry Marvin, sad Marvin, happy Marvin, he sings everything pretty much the same. Anna and Marvin eventually became amicable towards each other and remained friendly for the rest of his life. If she can forgive him, I guess we can as well, but that doesn't mean we need to celebrate the man's low points. This album has undergone a positive critical reappraisal that it doesn't deserve. It isn't an honest album, and Marvin did not bare his soul. He aired his grievances and attempted to embarrass his ex. My favorite song on the album, "A Funky Space Reincarnation," near as I can tell has nothing to do with Anna or his divorce, but meeting a chick some time between 2073 and 2093 for space sex and smoking something from Venus that is definitely not dope! Light, goofy, fun song. If the whole album was like this, I would have liked it a lot more.

Bowie's my guy, but I was not a big fan of his soul period. It's missing the intensity of the better soul artists of the period, and the musical execution just feels too generic to stand out. "Fame" is one of Bowie's emptiest hits and "Young Americans" is interesting more for it's lyrics than music. Everything else sounds like an overblown version of music Bowie was fascinated with at the time (including the cover of "Across the Universe," one of the worst things he ever recorded).

I don't even have the words here. This exercise is loaded with inferior stuff that is Not Fela, when you could have just jam packed it with Fela and made me much happier. The music is a fusion of West African music, jazz, and funk called Afrobeat, a genre that Fela pioneered. This is music that could breathe life into a dead man, the kind that makes you want to get out of your goddamn seat. Fela's band The Africa '70 could tear it up, and Fela's voice is the ideal cherry on top. Raw, powerful, exuberant, thrilling. Oh yeah, Ginger Baker shows up, whatever. (I'm kidding, Baker's drum segments are pretty great, but when you've got Tony freaking Allen as the band's regular drummer, it's hard to get excited about anyone else in the chair. Tony would get mad at Fela over the dispersal of royalties for music that he had a very prominent hand in creating, and leave Fela, taking several band members with him.) If I have a complaint, it's the crowd. Why are they not losing their minds? Why is there only polite applause at the end? Maybe that's just not a thing that's done in Nigeria.

I don't hate it, but the soft, midtempo, lo-fi sound is not really my thing. I like a little more raucous energy in my music ("Pictures of Me" and "Cupid's Trick" are the noisiest songs, and were my favorite listens). There are some nice melodies scattered throughout, but in total I'm just not the target audience for this kind of music.

An smorgasbord of an album with a wide variety of different styles. I tend to like these sort of things assuming the quality's good, and for the most part, it is. "Death On Two Legs," is one of the most extreme "fuck you" tracks written outside of hip-hop and the most incendiary thing Queen ever performed (so incendiary, in fact, they had qualms about releasing and performing it). The anger and aggression are cathartic, the guitar shreds, it's great. There are the smattering of throwback style songs ("Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon," "Seaside Rendezvous," "Good Company") that work to varying degrees, two shmaltzy but heartfelt and well performed love letters ("You're My Best Friend," "Love Of My Life"), one hilarious Roger Taylor penned track that is entirely explained in the title ("I'm In Love With My Car"), an enjoyable folk-rock ode to space travel from Brian May ("39") and of course there's "Bohemian Rhapsody," still grandiose and epic and still worthy of it's ambition, fifty years on. Not everything works. "The Prophet's Song" (Queen's second-longest song that they would ever record) is very ambitious but falls flat. "Sweet Lady" is a rocker that is just too screechy for my tastes. But for the most part, the songs are very enjoyable and the contrast in styles makes for a varied and interesting listen. This just makes it to the five-star level for me based on two songs I really love, "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Death On Two Legs" and enough quality down the rest of the lineup. I think the songs here are more enjoyable to listen to together than piecemeal. It's an album that's more than the sum of it's parts.

This is an album that I have always wanted to like more than I do. The type of music is right up my alley and I think the songs are well-composed and played, but there's a muted shell that surrounds the music. Shirley Manson never exhibits the vocal range or power to provide a contrast to the instruments, which may be by design (she's often buried in the mix as well). On the whole, I think the album is fine. I don't think there's a bad song here, and there are several that I think would be favorites ("As Heaven Is Wide," "Queer," "Vow," "My Lover's Box") if something about them was allowed to stand out more, either Manson or the instruments. And that's the crux of it. I understand this is strictly a me thing, but I have a hard time just sitting and enjoying this album when I can't stop thinking how much better it could have been.

Not that long ago that I reviewed "Here My Dear" which showcased Marvin at his lowest. Here he is at his best, conveying (on record, at least) empathy for the world around him in a way that's beautifully and touchingly expressive. This is a record that sounds important to Marvin and undoubtedly was, in that he had to fight for it against the wishes of his company. Topics arrange from pleas for understanding of the plight of black people ("What's Going On"), returning Vietnam vets ("What's Happening Brother"), drug users including himself ("Flyin' High"), the future ("Save The Children") religion ("God Is Love"), the environment ("Mercy Mercy Me"), empathy ("Right On"), unity ("Wholy Holy"), and the ghetto ("Inner City Blues"). This is a lot for one album to tackle in 35 minutes! The actual tackling of subjects ranges from very well-articulated treatises to scattershot musings, but more important is the delivery. Marvin's voice could melt butter and never leaves anything feel anything less than earnest, and it's surrounded with a luscious, shifting soundscape that continues from track to track, making the album feel like an extended suite. As much as any album, this deserves to be heard as a single piece. If you read any of my other reviews, you'll see that I'm not a fan of maudlin or overly-sentimental material, but I am a fan of earnestly-expressed emotion that is delivered in a compelling way, and in that regard there's nothing that measures up to What's Going On.

Nasal, warbled, hippy-dippy lyrics ("the dynamo of your smile caressed the barefoot virgin child to wander" FUCK OFF) sung over music provided by a crack selection of jazz musicians (bassist Richard Davis, drummer Connie Kay, guitarist Jay Berliner, flautist John Payne and percussionist Warren Smith, Jr.). Unfortunately, they don't sound much like jazz musicians on any of these songs except on "The Way Young Lovers Do" (easily my favorite song on here). It would have been great to get an actual jazz album out of this group without Morrison, but they are mostly confined to playing lilting, meandering, folk-ish background music to some truly terrible, self-indulgent singing. Morrison clearly loved the sound of his own voice and could stretch a single sentence over twenty miles of audiotape. Even Richard Cohen's sleepy, quarter-time singing is better than this. The (mostly-improvised) backing music is impressive, and there's one good song, which saves this from one star, but on the whole, this is an easy pass for me.

I appreciate that the Residents exist and that there is an audience for what they do, but I'm not part of it. Sorry, guys.

Pretty much the perfect punk album: loud and aggressive, but with a performance quality and sound of a band that wasn't all bluster. This album owes a lot to Steve Jones, who played guitar as well as bass on every song except for "Anarchy in the U.K." and crackles on both instruments, and drummer Paul Cook. Contrary to punk's reputation as a sloppy genre of music, both musicians are incredibly tight, delivering a muscular and addictively rhythmic sound, and Johnny Rotten straddles the line of conveyed anger without doing anything to overshadow or detract from the music. In closing, read the Wikipedia article on this album, especially the bit where Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten decide to go and bother Queen in the recording studio.

Music for people with serious heart conditions where anything remotely exciting might kill them. This isn't alternative-country, it's alternative-easily listening, and for someone like me who values pace, edge, emotional expressiveness and catharsis in my music, it's an absolute slog to get through. For some reason, I kept imagining Kermit the Frog singing these songs, but it didn't really make them any better.

Interesting selection for The Roots sole representation on this list. I think I agree about it being their best album. It feels like their most self-assured, at least, a statement of purpose in terms of content and music. Gone is the jazzy excursions in Things Fall Apart, which mostly feel like genre-stabs than anything that the group felt fully invested in. "Water: The First Movement" may be the best thing they ever recorded, a cautionary message to and about former member Malik B. who departed the group in part due to issues with drugs. "Rock You" and "Thought @ Work" are really strong, I enjoy the machismo on "Rhymes and Ammo" and Amiri Baraka's spoken-word essay "Something In The Way Of Things" is a powerful piece with some very cool background music. I do find myself wishing the rest of the material had a little more going for it, both lyrically and musically. As much as I like the first part of "Water," the extended instrumental suite in the rest of the track doesn't do anything for me. "The Seed 2.0" is a song about the music business with too many awkward, muddled metaphors to make a real statement. "Pussy Galore" (about the destructive impact of sexuality in pop culture) and "Break You Off" (about fucking some other man's girl) are working both sides of the same street. "Quills," Black Thought's braggadocio on his own skills, lacks teeth. "Sacrifice" and "Complexity" are soulful stabs that drift in one ear and out the other. I like the very brief punk raver "!!!!!!!" and I wish they had committed to it, as well as the hidden electro-dance track "Thirsty." This is a very good album if not necessarily a great one (to me), and it's brought me back to want to re-listen to the rest of the Roots catalogue, which deserved more representation here.

This is an album that's largely about Bjork's breakup with her partner Matthew Barney, and as I said in the review for Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear," I'm not really one for the airing of the personal laundry of people that aren't the artist, but there are differences here. Bjork doesn't really get into the details of her former lover, beyond some vague metaphors, and doesn't wallow in accusations and self-pity the way Marvin did. While Marvin sailed through his album with meandering R&B and groovy detachment, Vulnicura's music is way more interesting, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes contrasting with Bjork's various stages of grief and recovery. The album blooms in intensity in the latter half, and this is where my favorite songs are. "Notget" is an anxiety attack in musical form. "Atom Dance" is about the companionship of friends helping her recover, but it sounds as grief-stricken and unsettling as anything else. "Mouth Mantra" (about a period where she had vocal surgery and wasn't able to talk for weeks) and "Quicksand" (about her mother falling into a coma) are also devoid of calm, indicating that while the subject matter changed, the overall emotional state has not. I can't say I enjoyed every second of this, but I did like the music in general and the album is interesting. Bjork isn't content to let this be background music, engaging the listener and challenging them throughout. For people who think she's just a weirdo singer that verges on parody, this probably won't make you a convert, but I'm happy I listened to it.

The first concert I ever went to was Van Halen (supporting their 1984 album) and I feel like despite it being for that album, they played the entirety of this one. Despite David Lee Roth's vocal wanking over the top of almost every song (except for, ironically, "Eruption"), the real voice of this album is Eddie Van Halen's guitar, and the second-most noteworthy thing being Eddie and Michael Anthony's harmonies. There are a ton of hits here, but none that I ever really loved, (although the songs I think that were most ). David Lee Roth is a visual performer, and his vocals in isolation are kind of terrible. The rhythm section lacks punch as well, never more apparent than on "Atomic Punk" and "On Fire" which want to sound more powerful than they are. The muffled sound of the drums annoys me in general. But for all my complaints, it's not a bad album or a chore to listen to, and I do prefer fun and zany DLR Van Halen to the serious versions that came later. They just didn't have enough of the elements that I enjoyed out of metal, and the song's melodies weren't catchy enough to appeal to me from a pop perspective. But Eddie sure could play the hell out of a guitar, and 13-year old me really enjoyed them in concert.

Often said to be the pinnacle of industrial, which is the art of banging on shit that sounds cool and setting it to some form of music. You may argue that Einsturzende Neubauten doesn't quite accomplish the second thing (on this album, at least, they would get more conventional on future releases, the sellouts) but some of the rhythms are pretty cool, you can see a semblance of a structure on some tracks, and Blixa Bargeld's voice has a visceral quality I enjoyed. Up to a point, anyway. By the end of "Helga," I had enough and since the rest of the CD tracks weren't on the original release, I stopped there. This is the kind of music I signed up for, to broaden my horizons a bit, and while I didn't mind taking the plunge in this case, I doubt I'll be wading in these waters very often.