I've never listened to Christina Aguilera before but I should have done! I'd mistakenly assumed her genre was disco or lightweight teenpop, but I was wrong.
She has a great and strong voice, for example on Walk Away. There's a mix of styles on the album, some of which don't particularly appeal to me, but there's nothing truly awful that I couldn't listen to.
I won't Walk Away if she appears in my playlist in future.
Despite having seen the Rolling Stones once (Berlin Olympic Stadium in 1990) I've never been a fan. I'd never heard this album before but it's not changed my mind.
Musically it's good in parts, although I recognise the style from their other music that I've heard over the years, so it's a bit 'samey' to me.
What spoils it is Jagger's singing. It's too lazy, too indistinct and too mono-tonal for me. I won't be going back to listen to this again.
I had low expectations before starting to listen and the album failed to meet them.
The only redeeming "quality" is that it does eventually end.
I've never really listened to hip hop before 1001 albums. The bits I'd heard by chance weren't appealing so I'd not sought more to listen to.
Listening to two hip hop albums in two days has confirmed that I've not been missing anything.
Musically simple, I guess because it's more about the lyrics than the tune. My problem is that I come from the wrong time and place to interpret the lyrics in a meaningful way. Too many unknown words, possibly street slang, and the rest of the words spoken at pace in an accent that I don't find easy to understand. That makes it hard work to listen and get some sense from it. To me music shouldn't be hard work!
So I'm sure it means something to some people, just not me.
I hadn't knowingly heard any of The Strokes music before. I'd wrongly assumed from their name that they were a punk band - not one of my favourite genres. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they're a rock band
Musically this is a good album. It has the rhythms and guitar playing you'd expect from a rock band. Unfortunately not quite so memorable that as I write this 12 hours after listening I don't recall any stand out tracks.
What spoiled it for me was the vocals. The lyrics were fine, but their delivery was odd. I don't know if it's just this album or a band style, but the vocals on every track sounded like they were being sung through the inner sleeve of a toilet roll with the end covered in tissue paper. Not quite full kazoo but getting there. I found this fuzziness distracted me from fully enjoying the album.
This album was ok to listen to, but in my opinion not up with the upper echelons of the all time greats.
Caveat up-front. I've owned this album from it's release back in 1986 so I've played it regularly over the years.
This album was Peter Gabriel's move from a cult-ish following, including a lot of Genesis fans, to a more commercial style of music. Some of his earlier music was complex, both musically and lyrically, but this album is easier listening, probably to try to expand his audience.
All the tracks are great, but my favourites are Red Rain, Sledgehammer and Mercy Street with top spot reserved for Don't Give Up. The latter never fails to make me feel emotional every time I hear it. There's something about the combination of Peter and Kate Bush's singing coupled with the lyrics that gets me - particularly I guess because of the sentiment being expressed.
Musically, it's great, although more mainstream than his previous albums. That doesn't detract from it though. The album is very listenable.
I'd never heard of this band before, nor heard any of these tracks without knowing who played them.
They are said to be a rock band, I'd put this more in the punk rock genre - not a favourite of mine. I found nothing to really interest me on this album.
I found the music a relatively simple combination of a limited number of overdriven guitar chords which were so loud as to mostly drown out the drums a lot if the time. Perhaps it's best summed up as a wall of non-melodic sound.
There was little to redeem things with the vocals. Loud and raspy, pretty much overdriven too, lyrics shouted in a way that often made them indecipherable. Even when it was possible to hear the lyrics they seemed to be composed of simple repeated phrases that didn't seem to have any complex meaning.
I get it that this is often the punk style. I know punk fans like the style, but it's not for me.
Very much early 70's Sabbath style. Despite it being a pretty heavy rock album, there's still place for the Changes and Laguna Sunrise tracks, both of which I like.
Tony Iommi's guitar riffs are always top quality and bring a great melody to all tracks.
I'd heard tracks from the album before but never listened to the whole album end to end. In some ways I think that spoiled it for me a little.
There's no doubt that Adele has a great voice and she definitely shows it on these tracks. However, I felt that the tracks at the start of the album were a bit 'samey' to me. When the music is mostly about her voice then it seemed that the same style was used on multiple tracks. Listened to individually as I'd normally hear them this wasn't really obvious.
Compare that to the end of the album where on One and Only (my favourite), Lovesong and Someone Like You she showed her wide vocal range and differing singing styles.
Not sure I'll listen to the whole album again at one sitting, but I will still enjoy her songs on their own.
I've heard Little Richard tracks before but never listened to a whole album at once. I'm glad I have done and I appreciate what he did for Rock and Roll more now.
He's full of energy and puts that into his vocals, but it's not just the vocals. The whole band is exuding that same energy, from the banjo and trumpets to the boogie woogie piano. It all adds up to a high energy album which would have been odd for the time and still not completely usual today.
The lyrics are from a different time and place but despite that don't spoil what is a classic album.
Not really sure how to describe this. I'd never heard any Pixies tracks before and after this I won't be seeking any out in future.
Musically mostly fairly easy to listen to but also relatively simple - repeating chords and simple drums.
The vocals are where I gave up. Just too weird for me. The lyrics didn't make any kind of sense and the singing style was just too strange.
A classic 1980's female vocalist album. I don't know if she came before or after Whitney Houston but to me she's of a similar genre and similar time.
Anita clearly has a powerful voice and good lungs to keep the notes going for long periods. That was a style at the time, and whilst I don't find it in any way offensive it never was and never will be something I'm drawn to. It's listenable to if it came on the radio, but not something I'd seek out. I don't remember feeling different about that in the 80's either.
I'd never heard of Beach House before and after hearing them I'm not sure how they have been influential in the music world.
The music seemed pretty repetitive and for many tracks it mostly drowned out the vocals, often with a strange shushing echo tracking the vocals. As such I don't really know whether the lyrics were in some way influential, although I suspect not.
Not horrible music, just not one for me.
New music to me. I sometimes listen to Indian music and enjoy hearing the different sounds from the traditional instruments from that region of the world. I enjoyed this album for the same reason.
A difficulty I have with Indian music is that I haven't listened to enough of it. I find the tonal and rhythm changes as the music progresses jar with my western expectations. I guess I trip up when the next note or beat isn't what I was expecting and it takes a few seconds to get back into following the flow. That's not a fault of the music. That's how it's played. They just aren't progressions I'm used to hearing. I need to change the way I hear it to enjoy it more.
All said, I did enjoy the album and it's prompted me to try to find more of this style of music to listen to.
A bit of big band sound never did anyone any harm. I worked in a ballroom in the early 1980's where they had a big band on once a week and I always enjoyed that.
The same is true of this Ray Charles album - I enjoyed it. There's something about the beat of the music, the melodies and the vocals that's chill out relaxing from long before the ambient house chill out of the late 1980's to 2000's.
I don't go out searching for big band music when looking for something to listen to, but I don't skip it if it's suggested and hopefully having listed to this album I might get a few more suggestions in future.
I've heard Ian Dury songs many times over the years but have never listened to an album end to end. I think I've misjudged his style as being more punk rock than this album shows, but maybe that's just this album?
This felt like an Essex (Cockney?) music hall show. Musically varied but good with, in most cases, cheeky but clever lyrics. I'm not a great fan of an almost mono-tonal 'singing' style but it works on this album.
Overall, not really what I expected but in a good way.
I was introduced to Steely Dan by a friend at Uni 47 years ago and have listened to them regularly over the years since, so that's clearly a vote in their favour.
The album's music is a mixture of rock styles, not heavy, more soft and mellow. I think of the style as being Californian, but that's more of a personal distinction than anything formal.
The lyrics are complex and cryptic in places so difficult to analyse a meaning from them. That doesn't detract from the music though. The lyrics fit the music which is what's important.
Overall, an album I've listened to before and will listen to again.
A very obvious 1960's sound, for example the organ solo, from this album, but some of it still works in 2025. Break on through and Light my fire are well known classics and still good to listen to.
Other tracks, e.g. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) are full of 1960's psychedelic rock mystery and a bit impenetrable nearly 50 years later unless you're a fan of psychedelic rock.
I'd heard of the band before but thankfully hadn't heard any of their 'noise' before.
Musically it might have been ok if the distortion had been kept under control, but it wasn't. The vocals sounded like they were being sung from the other end of a 100m long tunnel so I've little idea of the lyrics.
By the second side it was giving me a headache and I think this might be the only album that's ever done that to me.
Instrumentally pretty good in parts, but the vocals spoiled many tracks.
I've only heard one Foo Fighters album before and didn't enjoy it, so I had low expectations. I was surprised to find a lot to enjoy in this album. So much so that I might listen to the album again sometime.
Whilst there's a lot of distortion used on the guitars it's not overpowering and the melodies are pretty good overall.
The vocals are mostly a bit too close to punk style (loud and brash) for me but even so they worked well alongside the music so not too bad.
