My 1001 Albums Journey

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2.53

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1002 albums remaining

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1970

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Hip-hop

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5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road Lucinda Williams	5	3	+2
My Aim Is True Elvis Costello	5	3.35	+1.65
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You Aretha Franklin	5	3.93	+1.07

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
The Stranger Billy Joel	1	3.86	-2.86
Hybrid Theory Linkin Park	1	3.39	-2.39
Teen Dream Beach House	1	3.27	-2.27
Tigermilk Belle & Sebastian	1	3.23	-2.23
Songs Of Love And Hate Leonard Cohen	1	3.2	-2.2
Freak Out! The Mothers Of Invention	1	2.82	-1.82
In Utero Nirvana	2	3.82	-1.82
Scott 4 Scott Walker	1	2.81	-1.81
Dookie Green Day	2	3.79	-1.79
The White Room The KLF	1	2.78	-1.78

5-Star Albums (5)

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Popular Reviews

The Stranger

Billy Joel · 1 likes

1/5

I hate Billy Joel. This album is all too well known to me, and I probably would have given a much higher rating before these songs were ground to dust in the last 40 years. One Star.

In Utero

Nirvana · 1 likes

2/5

Kurt Cobain hated being a rock star so much that he made this record as consciously unlistenable and unlikable as he could. He was a rock star as a result of having spent a year and $350k making Nevermind as good as it was. I was around and listening to the same music he was in that era. When a record company spends that kind of money making your first (real) record, they are gonna do they're damndest to make you a rock star. I wish he had not allowed the stardom to make him miserable, even if it meant he never became a star.

1-Star Albums (11)

All Ratings

Sea Change

Beck

3/5

Beautifully recorded and mixed. A little too consistently downtempo for me.

From Elvis In Memphis

Elvis Presley

2/5

Not yet a caricature, but on the way. Good band buried in a so-so mix with too many pop overdubs.

Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

4/5

All time great. No filler, and at least 2 unassailable classics.

Crosby, Stills & Nash

3/5

My Aim Is True

Elvis Costello

5/5

Clean, punchy production perfection. Tough, tight songwriting. Crisp, restrained performances. Hard to admit, I have only known the hits from this record, and there are plenty of them. Pretty hard to be both timeless and absolutely of it's time, but this record is both. 5 stars is not grade inflation.

Birth Of The Cool

Miles Davis

2/5

Not as mind bending as I was expecting, but then I am not listening in 1957. More alike than different from track to track, and while obviously stacked with talent, Miles doesn't stand out as much as he blends in. I would say his soundtrack to Ascenseur pour l'echafaud is a more immediate and personal record from the same period.

Dire Straits

3/5

The White Room

The KLF

1/5

Kenza

Khaled

2/5

Picture Book

Simply Red

2/5

A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield

2/5

Iron Maiden

3/5

Ananda Shankar

2/5

Haut de gamme / Koweït, rive gauche

Koffi Olomide

2/5

Steve McQueen

Prefab Sprout

2/5

Fear Of Music

Talking Heads

3/5

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

4/5

A Night At The Opera

Queen

3/5

Dirty

Sonic Youth

3/5

Songs Of Love And Hate

Leonard Cohen

1/5

Heaven Or Las Vegas

Cocteau Twins

2/5

Can't stand the production. Too washy and verby for me. It is very of it's time.

The Stranger

Billy Joel

1/5

I hate Billy Joel. This album is all too well known to me, and I probably would have given a much higher rating before these songs were ground to dust in the last 40 years. One Star.

The Band

4/5

Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room

Dwight Yoakam

2/5

Production is very dated. Hyper clean, and the guitar sounds are thin and brittle. I know there are great players on this, but they seem to be holding back. Seems to be trying to hearken back to an earlier style of country music, but is let down by the stilted tempos and the crystalline sonic palette.

Teen Dream

Beach House

1/5

Black Holes and Revelations

Muse

2/5

She's So Unusual

Cyndi Lauper

2/5

Common

3/5

Oxygène

Jean-Michel Jarre

2/5

In The Wee Small Hours

Frank Sinatra

2/5

In Rainbows

Radiohead

3/5

Purple Rain

Prince

4/5

Freak Out!

The Mothers Of Invention

1/5

Self-indulgent contrarian racket. I love that Zappa exists/existed, but really glad I don't have to hear it often. Not as clever as he thought it was? Or too clever to actually work? Dunno.

Dust

Screaming Trees

3/5

Solid production that sounds immediate, not trendy. Good rock songs sung by a singular voice. Nothing groundbreaking, but earns it's place.

Black Sabbath

4/5

World changing. I used to think this album was a glimpse of what Black Sabbath would become, but it is a powerhouse record that is among the best first releases ever. Not only introduced the band, but created a new genre. Great sequencing. First 3 tracks come out swinging.

The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Charles Mingus

2/5

Odessey And Oracle

The Zombies

2/5

Among The Living

Anthrax

2/5

Elvis Presley

2/5

Dookie

Green Day

2/5

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

Aretha Franklin

5/5

Unassailable perfection. A master at her apex. Surrounded by the best of the best.

Bossanova

Pixies

4/5

#1 Record

Big Star

4/5

Post Orgasmic Chill

Skunk Anansie

2/5

Melodrama

Lorde

2/5

Talking Book

Stevie Wonder

4/5

Undeniable excellence, with restraint and confidence. If Superstition was the only good track it would still be an all time classic.

Rubber Soul

Beatles

5/5

The apex of their pop mastery. A comfortable looseness, like George's guitar parts on What Goes On, and great swing. Just hinting at the experimental era to come. Not a weak track on the album. I have heard this record 1001 times, and this is my first time listening to the mono mixes, which are the only mixes the Beatles supervised. It takes away a lot of the gimmicky panning, and makes it more immediate, and curiously, less dated.

Get Behind Me Satan

The White Stripes

2/5

Dynamics in the early aughts was a rarity. Good stuff, but mostly well trod by them by the time this was released.

Dusty In Memphis

Dusty Springfield

2/5

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

A Tribe Called Quest

3/5

Solid tracks all the way through. Can I Kick it is an all time classic

Out Of The Blue

Electric Light Orchestra

2/5

Pristine engineering, but sounds very like an homage to the Beatles to me. 10 years too early, or 10 years too late?

Teenager Of The Year

Frank Black

3/5

I was big into this record and Frank Black's follow ups when it came out. Also Breeders. I liked the style of recording. I believe they were mostly cut live. They had a 2 track running at rehearsals, and dialed in, so could just run the set over and over, and the best take became the track. Or so I have heard.

In A Silent Way

Miles Davis

2/5

Time Out

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

3/5

On The Beach

Neil Young

2/5

A little ramshackle and insecure. But in a good way. I am an avowed Neil fan, but I had never heard much from this album. I'm not surprised by its obscurity.

Tragic Songs of Life

The Louvin Brothers

2/5

Synchronicity

The Police

3/5

Was never my thing, but ya gotta respect the dark tinged pop.

We Are Family

Sister Sledge

2/5

Clean, clear vision from Bernard and Nile. Disco was once maligned, (guilty) but it has its place, and Nile is a master. That being said, it is a bit one note, and was pretty well trod territory by this time.

Hybrid Theory

Linkin Park

1/5

Overblown angst. Badly recorded. The more he screams, the less I care.

Triangle

The Beau Brummels

1/5

Drunk

Thundercat

2/5

Well done, but not my thing. A bit one note.

Deep Purple In Rock

Deep Purple

2/5

Not their finest hour. Guitars and organs are fuzzed out and a little meandering. More psychedelic than much of their catalog, but they are at their best when swinging the metal hammer.

Paul's Boutique

Beastie Boys

4/5

Game changing. I slept on this for years because I hated License to Ill so much. I could not fathom that those Jabronis could make a genre defining monster of a record. The Dust brothers were so good at the sample game that they ended up breaking the whole system.

Wild Gift

3/5

Great songs, middling production that does not translate the potential energy of a killer band. Many of these songs are found on the album "Live at the Whiskey A-gogo on the Fabulous Sunst Strip, where they come alive.

Dig Your Own Hole

The Chemical Brothers

2/5

Scott 4

Scott Walker

1/5

Violator

Depeche Mode

2/5

I used to be reflexively anti- British goth pop or whatever you would call this. I hated the concept of music that was almost entirely synth and drum machine. Lately, I have been listening to more with an open mind, and while I am still not an fan of the production, I can recognize the pop songwriting chops at play.

Paranoid

Black Sabbath

5/5

I came to this record late. I absolutely should have found it when I was 14. It may have changed the direction of my life. It still managed to, even though I didn't hear it til I was in my mid 20's. It is an obvious 5 star record. Genre defining powerhouse. A true band effort. There are no laggards here. The sound of post-war optimism being melted down to make new weapons. Heavy metal in it's prototypical form. The next 50 years would find bands galloping faster, drums pounding harder, singers flailing ever farther from melody, to gutteral howls. Guitars with ever more distortion and fingers flying across fretboards. Tony Iommi didn't even need all of his fingers to make this crush into our skulls. But for all of the bands that went farther and faster. None were darker. This is still the blackest.

Rock 'N Soul

Solomon Burke

2/5

Great voice let down by some curious choices in the arrangements and production. A lot of really thin 123 string acoustic and backing vocals that come from more of a pop background than the gospel/soul vibe that would seem to propel the songs.

Fun House

The Stooges

2/5

Somewhat disjointed and immature. Only hints of the sharpness of the first record, and none of the Raw Power they would show soon.

Arise

Sepultura

1/5

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

Public Enemy

4/5

Proof that hip-hop can be more than mumbling boasts. Powerful words and killer beats, without outright theft of others music.

In Utero

Nirvana

2/5

Wish You Were Here

Pink Floyd

3/5

Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus

Spirit

3/5

White Blood Cells

The White Stripes

3/5

Led Zeppelin II

Led Zeppelin

3/5

Orbital 2

Orbital

1/5

Soul Mining

The The

2/5

Drum machines are the autotune of the 80's. It must have have been soul crushing to be a talented drummer in the era of the Linn Drum. Can't get past it to hear the songs.

Fulfillingness' First Finale

Stevie Wonder

3/5

A surprising ly mild entry from Stevie's Imperial Period. Solid songs and production, but outshined by his other period work

Jazz Samba

Stan Getz

2/5

Doolittle

Pixies

3/5

This is a great record, and one of the first that allowed me (a devoted ROCKER) to enjoy pop without feeling guilty. Mostly solid songs, with too much credit given to Frank Black. The Breeders showed how much Kim Deal was bringing to the party.

Car Wheels On A Gravel Road

Lucinda Williams

5/5

A perfect record. No notes. Evocative and powerful. Relaxed and confident. It does not show the incredible strife and hard work that went into it.

Whatever

Aimee Mann

3/5

The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

2/5

Germfree Adolescents

X-Ray Spex

2/5

Tigermilk

Belle & Sebastian

1/5