This is clearly contemporary to ‘70s Bowie. Some wild swings artistically.
Bitter-Sweet was a standout.
A couple of great tunes (Under My Thumb, Out Of Time) in an otherwise unremarkable British ‘60s blues swamp. Going Home was a particular boring slog.
Hard to be mad at those folksy harmonies. Some absolute classics here (America, Mrs Robinson, Hazy Shade of Winter). I can trace a through line from Dylan to this to The Kinks ‘Village Green…’
Rather than feeling like a document of the time, this album still feels alive.
Great storytelling and the sound of a band that all lift each other up to be better.
It’s hard, looking back now, to remember just how fresh and different this sounded. The world has moved on but this album is still full of the cocksure swagger of people too young to know better.
I don’t feel like I can give this an objective rating. So I won’t.
A big influence on the early work of The Beatles, and all the songs here are good. The band are especially tight, and Richard’s vocals have many imitators and no equals.
In the end though it was just kinda fine.
I didn’t enjoy side A of this undoubtedly cutting edge exploration of blues rock. Opening with a harpsichord didn’t instil confidence, and my instincts were sadly accurate.
Little did I know that I would look back on these tracks fondly as I slogged through the 18 minute long free-form blues jam of side B.
I’d heard the singles before, but never the whole album. In the End is unsurprisingly the best thing on this album.
So much of this sounds like a petulant teenage tantrum, with rapping that wouldn’t be out of place on a Lonely Island parody.
I remember when it seemed like the whole world was crazy for BVSC. Tours etc.
I bet they were phenomenal live.
Not really my thing. Especially at album length.
Really feels like I should be blaring this out of the open window of my car. You could release this today and it would feel absolutely cutting edge.
Paper Planes is of course the standout, but doesn’t feel out of place on the album. Truly a unique talent.
Cool and breezy…
And kinda boring.
Elevator/hold music.
Surprising how contemporary this feels. The eastern influence has become far more prominent in music since this was released.
Quite simply, a masterpiece.
Feels kind of cold. Like it’s deliberately keeping you at a distance. But as a defence mechanism. Because it’s also fragile.
Not my first choice for Beck albums, but a good time nonetheless.
Some stand out tracks, and some boring bluesy jams. I wonder if we’d still be talking about The Doors if Morrison hadn’t died young, or if they’d just be a footnote on the ‘60s.
Iconic, influential, timeless
I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. Fogerty obviously has an incredible voice, but the blues rock on display here is pretty solid.
Some great tunes, and impressive lyrical gymnastics. Feels somewhat dated now.
The foundation of the sounds of my youth. Excellent sludgy guitars.
Loose collection of prior singles. Some great tunes, but didn’t really feel cohesive.
Still sounds great!
Boring, and not in a fun way.
Some great tunes and some big swings. Less cohesive than their later work but the highs are higher.
Not bad, but not really my thing either. Closer than I would have expected though.
Quite simply flawless.
I thought this was pretty good. Socially conscious storytelling paired with sharp production.
Full of swagger and energy. One of the all time greats.
Cool and cruisy. A great soundtrack to a summer afternoon.
Pretty good. You can clearly hear Bowie all through this. Lacks the raw energy of The Stooges, but still a decent listen.
Some great tunes here, but it’s hard to separate from the meaningless stadium slop that Coldplay have been leaning into for the last couple of decades.
I enjoyed this, but a day later I find myself unable to recall any specific song.
Took me a minute to get into the vibe of this. Once I got there it was okay. I much prefer Loveless though.
Some of these have become the definitive rendition. All of these are good.
There’s signs of brilliance, and the hits are great, but the album is four or five songs too long, and the interludes can go too. .
A nice cruisy Saturday afternoon in the sun with a cold drink. Pleasant and unobtrusive.
Not all of this has aged well, but some of it has carried through. Nothing outstanding in either direction.
He’s got a hell of a voice, that’s for sure. This could have been released in 2005 and everyone would have lost their minds.
This sounds like somebody asked the SNL band to make an album of the jams they perform to keep the studio audience awake during the ad breaks.
This was fine. It didn’t really grab me, but I can see the long shadow that it casts.
This was great. The Beasties always have great flow. Add to that the impeccable production from the dust brothers and this is a real joy.
Somehow I’d not listened to this album despite loving the releases either side. What a joy to spend the time with Nick and Co. I immediately wanted to listen again.
Meh.
Can’t separate myself from this one. Still remember the first time I heard Come Out and Play. Being 16 when this dropped was the perfect age to consume it.
So. Many. Great. Tunes.
So boring.
Really great. What an incredible voice. What an iconic guitar player. Even the unnecessary ‘big band’ vibe can’t ruin just how good this is.
Prog rears its ugly head. Miss me with song suites and 8 minute tracks.
Some decent musicianship, but it’s still a pass from me.
For some reason, there was a brief time in my teenage years when I was quite into this album. It was nostalgic to listen to it again. Some great songs here; including a somewhat incongruous cover of Born To Run.
She has a really unique voice, but other than Lucy Jordan none of the songs were particularly notable.
This was, surprisingly, pretty good. Despite being a long term detractor of Fairytale of New York, I thought it was great in the context of the album.
Some undeniable skills on display, but it dragged on a little. Probably not helped by having to listen on YouTube.
Decent stadium rock, from before that was really a thing.
It’s a shame that Morrissey is such a cunt.
For late period Bowie this is quite listenable. Nothing of extreme high quality, but pretty good throughout.
Whoof. Too much noise and not enough music. Definitely not for me.
I really liked the energy of this. Defying genre and convention to be exactly what they wanted to be.
This album was incredible. So hugely influential, bands were still trying to look and sound like this 40 years later.
I hadn’t realised Counting Crows were basically a tribute act to The Band, and I like Counting Crows.
I feel like young Bob Dylan would have loved Jack Elliott, and old Jack Elliott would have hated Bob Dylan.
Some pretty strong traditional American folk music here. The foundation of so much of what has been built since.
This benefits from not being directly compared only to the highs of The Pixies.
It’s a little bit Pixies, some Pavement, some New Pornographers, and something all its own.
Vary 1994.
I really struggled with this one. Long meandering songs, and a ‘what if Bjork bough a harp?’ aesthetic.
This album has so many back to back to back anthems. An incredible swing.
I am discovering that I really do not enjoy prog.
This was great. Like a slightly more country Sheryl Crow. Very enjoyable.
I know this set a new standard for heavy music, and it’s better than I expected, but I can definitely take it or leave it.
Smooth cool and jazzy. Feels so designed to sit in the background that it draws very little attention to itself. Pleasant enough, but otherwise unremarkable.
Stone cold classic.
What a fucking great album, and a wonderful excuse to spin the vinyl.
This was fine. Pretty good in places. Dragged a little, but enjoyable.
Mostly pretty good, but nothing else reaches the heights of the title track.
It’s seldom a good idea to draw from the same well twice, but damn if the man in black doesn’t make it work.
No. Fucking. Chance.
This was fine, but due to the reputation I was expecting a little more.
Kind of reminded me of the Carpenters. Not bad, but nothing really leapt out at me.
There was a moment somewhere in the middle of the sprawling 20 minute opening track where I thought maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
It was a fleeting moment.
I only really knew Geno (and of course Eileen, which doesn’t feature here.
This was pretty good. Huge range of styles and approaches. Clearly a strong influence on Custard, and others of their ilk.
Surprisingly shares a lot with Springsteen of the same era. Costello is a treasure.
Beautiful, but kinda boring. Loved Graceland and thought this was just kinda meh.
Yeah, I liked it but didn’t love it. Prefer Q-Tip as a feature artist.
I was half listening to this while doing other things. Not the best way to do justice to Paul Simon and his lyrics.
Sorry Paul.
This is a classic. Bolstered by The Band, Dylan was on a real creative tear at this point in his career.
Feels more like cultural appropriation than a fusion of musical styles.
This was fine. Some standouts. A lot of ‘British talk rapping’ ala Pet Shop Boys
What a pleasant surprise! Dark and arch and self aware and funny and sad. Delightful.
This was fine. Didn’t really stand out much. Karma Chameleon remains ‘a bop’
There’s a lot of great tunes on this album. Just the right kind of electro tinged pop.
When I was a child, my parents had this album in their record collection. I remember the face of the sad boring looking man staring out at me while I grabbed something by ELO with a spaceship on the cover.
This is about what you’d expect from Cohen. Poetic and literate and well worth the time.
This may have been the first compact disc my parents owned. I know it cast a long shadow over the new format in the mid ‘80s. The first half of this album is chock full of bops. The second half is more of a meandering collection of Knopfler auditioning for work on film scores.
This was thoroughly enjoyable.
This was a big yawn for me. I’m sure this is all technically proficient, but it was in no way electrifying.
Good blues rock with some great guitar work. Don’t know that I’m here for 20 minute guitar solos, but I bet if you were in the room you would have lost your mind.
Meh
DNF
Boring EDM.
I mean, c’mon…
I quite enjoyed this. Elegant im the sparse arrangement.
This was pretty boring. I’ve enjoyed some LDR in the past, but none of that was here.
Again a jazz album misses for me.
Yeah fine, I guess. Streets of your Town is a clear standout.
So many of these albums are just fine. Almost completely unremarkable and of their time. I barely remembered this by the time I was finished listening.
I can see this as a precursor to so much music from the ‘80s and ‘90s. But I wasn’t wowed by it.
Actually pretty good.
Alison has a great voice, and there are some great tunes. But the rest of the album is all a bit ‘Portishead at home’.
Flawless
I’m of the opinion that it is vanishingly rare for a double album to have enough good songs to justify stretching to a second disc. This is no exception. The highs here are absolutely great, but imagine if all the chaff was left for b-sides and there was one really solid album here instead.
Very ‘80s. Not as clever as it thinks it is.
What a pleasant surprise. The template for The Offspring.
I don’t feel like live albums belong on this list. Whilst it may have been life changing to see these acts at the height of their power, I just don’t feel like this is the same as a classic album.
Having said that, this was pretty good.
I was somewhat excited when I saw this come up in rotation. I had fond memories of this album from when it was released. On listening however I found this to be somewhat stodgy. Not as exciting or electric as it felt 30 years ago.
Ambitious. I’ve never paid enough attention to follow the narrative, but the standout tunes are great.
These guys would have been the coolest band in your town. Playing monthly gigs at the college and dreaming of stardom. Five years later they’re all working blue collar jobs and drinking themselves into a haze on the weekends reminiscing about the glory days.
Loved this. The Cure were better at being U2 than U2 were.
The title theme is iconic. The rest of this doesn’t do much without the film to accompany it.
Just kinda sounds like New Order. Not as good as where they’d been, or where they were going.
This was pretty good. It evoked Crowded House of a similar era, but remained entirely its own thing.
Enjoyed the cover of summer breeze. The rest was pleasantly funky.
I know Ryan is a little problematic, but this album is close to the pinnacle of the alt country movement of the early aughts. Not something I’d listened to in a while.
I was excited to listen to this. Waterloo Sunset is one of the all time greats. The album was pretty good, and would likely shine on repeated listens. Not a lot of stand out after just one spin.
Foundational. He has a great voice, and these tunes are well executed.
Generally pretty good. Some longer songs but I was only half listening so I just occasionally noticed the same song was still going on and on.
‘We’ve got Bowie at home’
Lou always manages to be completely himself.
For some reason this took me a few days to get through. No fault of the tunes. Just wasn’t vibing with it.
Even without the Mt Fuji of the title track, this is a pretty good album.
I like Supergrass, this was fun.
Another great foundational piece. Whole genres stand on these shoulders. A fun listen.
Just about as good as I remember it.
Mystifying that Oasis are global megastars and these guys are a Brit pop footnote.
Closer to Motown soul than you might expect.
Prior to this I only really knew Gainsbourg as that horny French guy with the sex song, but this was really bloody good.
I wasn’t expecting this to be any good, but it was pretty good.
This was lovely, as always.
This is pretty good. And quite different to Catch a Fire.
I’ve long been a fan of the opener of this album thanks to High Fidelity. The rest is pretty good, but nothing quite as electric and exciting as track 1.
