1001 Albums Summary

Not a new one for me and I always had a soft spot for a lot of old school rap/hip-hop. The song The Message is an enduring classic for a good reason. While it’s not something I necessarily gravitate to, overall the album is a solid 8/10.

This one is a challenge. I would probably like Smashing Pumpkins a lot except for one big thing: Billy Corgan’s vocals (also Billy Corgan himself but that’s not really relevant here). He sounds like a strangulated cat and that’s being kind. The songs alone? Pretty good. But I just can’t get past his voice so it’s all ruined for me. It’s pretty hard to ignore a lead singer, you know?

I remember hearing You Oughta Know for the first time on MTV and loved it but I never actually listened to the whole album, just the other songs that were released as singles and I wasn’t as impressed. So this is my first time hearing the whole thing. It was…better than I expected based on those other singles. It’s just that after a while her voice is really grating in a shrill, nails-on-a-chalkboard way that’s very unpleasant. This is the case with too many artists for me. A couple of songs at a time? Fine. A whole album’s worth of caterwauling? Not so much. 8 for the songs themselves, 3 for the vocals.

Well, this album reminded me that, no matter how big a fan I was of the Beatles, with very rare exceptions I just could not get into their solo work. Not even George, who I thought had some of the best songs on Beatles albums. Paul was the worst offender, followed closely by John. But Paul’s solo work (some songs on his first album being some of those rare expections) just showed me how much both he and John needed the other to temper their worst indulgences. Paul was treacly, overly sentimental, just downright goofy sometimes but not ironically and he would have been right at home in some English music hall. His stuff just makes me shudder. There are a couple of okay songs on Band On the Run, Let It Roll and Bluebird (I think) but the rest makes me want to stick pencils in my ears. This is the first time I’ve listened to this album all the way through and it will be the last.

It is groundbreaking, brilliant, peak artistry? No. It is big, sloppy, noisy and brash? Yes. Did I have fun listening to it? Also yes.