More trad blues/rock than I expected. I thought Creedence were psychedelic hippies. Not bad.
Great, I'll be listening to this again.
Brilliant. I'd heard some Fela, but never this, which is clearly a very important album in all sorts of ways.
First one that I had never heard of before. I enjoyed it but wasn't blown away - suprising mix of influences from country, jazz, crooner, soul, rock and roll. I knew one or two of the songs from parody versions but not the originals.
Another one that I've always meant to gove a listen. Unfortunately it easily becomes wallpaper if you just put it on while working , like I did. Interesting though.
The first one to come up that I already know well. Love it.
Didn't manage to listen to this properly but maybe I'll come back to it
Not my usual sort of thing, but he does what he does very well, and I found this quite moving despite it feeling a bit sentimental at first. Some dreadful rhymes though.
Interesting. I had only heard Beck's more experimental stuff before. For me, this suffered from coming the day after Frank Sinatra. I am much more the intedned audience for Beck, and I think this record is more creative and interesting in lots of ways than the Sinatra. But Sinatra somehow communicates melancholy and loss in an elemental, archetypal way, and this feels a bit wan in comparison.
I genuinely had no idea what I was listening to at first. Amazing creativity and mashup of genres, and I like the politics. The music didn't connect for me personally though.
Another one I already know and love, but it really rewarded a more careful listen.
Surprised to see it on this list though. I would have guessed something by Husker Dü would be included, but if anything by Sugar was on here I'd have guessed it'd be Beaster.
For whatever reason, Elton John's music has always pretty much left me cold, and this hasn't changed my mind. I was surprised by 'Indian Summer', which seems like well-meaning but clueless cultural appropriation - and even more surprised to learn that he was still singing it live in 2011.
Not confident rating this, as rap really requires careful listening and this is a monster of an album, so I dind't have time to do it justice. Clearly a very ambitious piece of work - not my usual style but I'm glad I gave it some attention.
Nice to have finally heard the originals after knowing some of these songs from Nirvana Unplugged, but nothing grabbed me especially.
Nice to have finally heard the originals after knowing some of these songs from Nirvana Unplugged, but nothing grabbed me especially.
This kind of smooth soul washes over me and all the songs feel a bit samey. I realise this is because I'm not familiar enough with the genre to appreciate the nuances of arragment and performance properly. Hopefully this project will educate me a bit.
Another gap filled in my musical education -never heard any of these songs before. I liked it musically but often found the lyrics and singing style hard to take seriously.
Great to properly listen to some Krautrock, having been generally aware of the genre vand a bit familiar with Kraftwerk. Very interesting how this switches, often within the same song, between electronic noises that feel decades ahead of their time and much more conventional seventies psychedelic rock.
I kn ew some of the songs from this but it's nice to hear the album. I'm in two minds about Cat Stevens - I like the music but for some reason a lot of the lyrics slightly give me the ick. I think they feel a bit smug and condescending.
Love it! The combination of funk with a sixties wildness is great.
Nice but nothing stood out about it for me.
First time listening to a whole album by Fatboy Slim, even though I love big beat. When it came out I had a bit of a hipsterish dislike of it because it was so popular. But having listened properly I'm still not taken with it. It doesn't have the playfulness of Bentley Rhythm Ace or Propellerheads, or the transcendent euphoria of the Chemical Brothers. It just feels emptily hedonistic, a perfect soundtrack for the mad-fer-it laddishness of Cool Britannia.
Brilliant! The mix of funk and Latin styles is so much fun. I found myself dancing to this more than any of the other albums I've listened to on the list.
I've been meaning to listen to more Lana Del Rey. This is clearly very good but I'm still finding what I have before - I find it hard to connect with the songs emotionally, a lot of it feels a bit detached and artful to me. I think that's a me problem though. I'll give this another listen at some point.
I've been meaning to listen to more Lana Del Rey. This is clearly very good but I'm still finding what I have before - I find it hard to connect with the songs emotionally, a lot of it feels a bit detached and artful to me. I think that's a me problem though. I'll give this another listen at some point.
Not my kind of thing but it's clearly very good and I can see how influential it's been. I really like 'Lost In Music'.
Modern R&B is not my thing but I was surprised by how creative the production and use of samples etc is on this. If anything, the production is a bit busy for my taste, with lots of layers of stuff going on.
I already knew and loved this. I think it holds up, but I'm less comfortable these days with a white artist making millions off samples of Black artists...
While Freddy Mercury was cool and Queen are clearly incredible musicians, their grandiose theatrical style has never appealed to me. Singing nonsense doggerel about ogres and fairies doesn't help. Pompous, po-faced, showy and ridiculous.
I was curious about this, having only heard 'Another Girl Another Planet'. It was pretty much as I expected - post punk with a Velvet Underground influence, although there were some surprisingly jazzy bits. 'Another Girl Another Planet' is very much the standout track, I would have liked more like that.
Dolly Parton is, by all accounts, an amazing person, and has written some great songs. But nothing on this album grabbed me much. The wisdom on offer is a bit too simple and folksy for my taste, and none of the songs stood out much for me
Not really my sort of thing, but a fascinating listen. You can really hear the blues and rockabilly elements meeting the punk rawness, and see what an influence this must have been on Pixies.
This is fascinating. Everyone goes on about the innovations in Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper, but this came out a year later and sounds way more modern and pioneering in a lot of ways. The content of the songs doesn't have the slightly conservative nostalgia that I think you find in those other records, either.
Not an easy listen though, very spiky and strange.
One I know and love already. It was good to give it a closer listen. In the context of the other albums on this list, it stands out for having relatively simple arrangements, with the emphasis very much on the lyrics and songwriting.
I tend to think concept albums aren't strictly the same kind of thing as most of the other albums on here, and need to be listened to differently. This has more in common with a musical or an opera than it does with a rival rock album. And I'm not very interested in any of those things.
Added to that, the theme and style put me off. A rich famous rockstar can certainly make interesting music about his personal angst and suffering, but when it's delivered in such an epic, theatrical style, it feels self-absorbed and pretentious to me.
Beautiful. I've never properly listened to Goldfrapp before, and I was expecting chilly electronica, so I was pleasantly surprised at how warm and human this is. I'll be listening again.
The subject matter sounds great, but I remain unfamiliar with R&B as a genre so it all sort of washes over me. I did figure out that R&B sounds terrible through tinny phone speakers though - I'll listen to future R&B albums through hewadphones or decent speakers. I enjoyed it much more once there was some decent bass.
Musically great, love the guitar and it had me boogying in the kitchen. Lyrically it felt a bit repetitive, I can only take so many songs about beautiful ladies and lonesome nights one after another. I think I'd enjoy the songs individually more than I did listening to the whole album. But it grew on me as it went, and I might enjoy it more on a second listen.
I have tried quite a few times to listen to and appreciate this album. I thought maybe this time would be the charm, but sadly not. I love all Radiohead's albums up to OK Computer but have always been ambivalent about their later work. I respect their decision to be more experimental and leftfield and, mainly, less commercial. But I have never really enjoyed any of the music.
This is so dour and dreary that it eventually started irritating me.
I'm baffled as to how this made the list. I'm not a fan of nu-metal anyway, but surely there are much better and more influential examples of the genre. Utterly uninteresting to me.
I liked this a lot. I know 'All is Dream' but hadn't heard much other Mercury Rev. To me, this sounds a bit like they're developing the dreamy, soaring-strings sound that I love on that album, but haven't quite got there yet. Still great and I'll be listening again.
I knoew and liked this already. It's beautiful, and listening again made me want to look up a translation of the lyrics. Hopefully that will help me listen again a bit more deeply - with very dreamy/ambient music like this, I tend to let it wash over me and don't really engage with it actively.
This is the first one I couldn't be bothered to finish. I can normally spearate the art from the artist, but a known racist profiting from uninspired cover versions of songs by Black artists makes that impossible. Naming the album after the fancy house he was living in at the time just adds to my disdain for this man. A good guitarist but none of the performances on here interested me at all.
I'm afraid I had this on in the background and let it drift over me a bit - which was easy to do because the orchestra/strings seemed to be as prominent as the funk. I think it sounded good though!
20-minute prog-rock epics about the priests of Syrinx are very much not my thing. Neither are screamy metal songs featuring offensive Orientalist stereotypes. Self-indulgent, dreary nonsense. It would have been 2 stars but then I learned it's somehow based on Ayn Rand. Fuck this shit.
This was great. Amazing power, anger and focused message. I'd only heard It Takes a Nation of Millions before, but I think I'll be looking up their other albums now,
This was fun but as I grow older, I have less patience for the more whimsical bits of psychedelia - I'm more aware these days of how much of it is just privileged white boys pissing about. This is a better example of it though, I like Syd Barrett.
I love Spiritualized so I should have listened to Spacemen 3 a long time ago. I was expecting it to be spikier and more electronic, but found I really liked it. You can really see the through line from this to early Spiritualized, and in fact Spiritualized still play some of the songs live.
This felt like the jazz equivalent of The Fall for me. I'm glad I've heard it, I like to know that people are pushing aginst the boundaries of a form and being genuinely experimental, but it's absolutely not the kind of thing I would listen to normally. Without a strong interest in avant-garde jazz, it's hard not to find that bits of this sound like cats fighting in a bag.
Sonic Youth are another band I always meant to pay more attention to. The bits I've heard didn't grab me much. I enjoyed this a bit more, but I can't help thinking that Nirvana listened to this and went, 'This is great, but what if it had actual tunes and the vocals weren't drowned in guitar soup?'
I've never liked what I've heard of the Bee Gees and I've learned to dread the appearance of a concept album on this list, so this was not off to a good start.
Musically I didn't hate it, but the mix of styles and subjects felt all over the place and incoherent. Why are pieces that sound like film scores sitting next to country music and faintly psychedelic songs?
The macho masturbatory guitar solos, the lyrical content, and the well known behaviour of the band members all combine to make me feel that this is what toxic masculinity would sound like if you turned it into music. And all the wailing and moaning just sounds risible to me. Very much not my cup of tea.
Liked this a lot - but my unfamiliarity with reggae means it all washes over me a bit, and just gives me a warm mellow feeling rather than inspiring critical opinions. On this listen, nothing leapt out as being a classic like 'Redemption Song' or 'Get Up Stand Up'.
Short and sweet, and really good. I knew the famous Blondie songs but had never listened to them properly before. Love the guitars, and her voice is amazing.
I liked this. Nice arrangements and orchestration. Avoids being twee like a lot of psychedelia, or macho and pretentious like the Doors. None of the songs grabbed me especially though.
I'm glad I've heard this because it's so influential. It was a less difficult listen than other experimental jazz I've heard on the list, but still not entirely my cup of tea.
Nice. I enjoyed the second half more than the big band stuff in the first half. I think there's other stuff by Ray Charles that would appeal to me more, I should seek it out.
I haven't listened to the Doors for ages, and I enjoyed it more than I expected to. I like Riders on the Storm, and I also liked the gentler bluesier bits.
Queen are still not my cup of tea at all, but this was better than their previous appearance on the list. It hangs together surprisingly well for an album with such a mix of styles, it has a sense of humour which felt sadly lacking in the previous effort, and there are no ogres this time. An extra star just for Bohemian Rhapsody.
One of the things I'm enjoying most about this project is getting to know more hip-hop. I like this, and I think it must have been influential on other stuff I've heard. The constant rectum jokes were a bit much after a while though.
Not sure how it's never heard of Liz Phair before, as she's very much in the same area as artists I'm a fan of like Ani DiFranco and Jill Sobule. I enjoyed this and immediately listened to a couple more of her albums.
I have heard bits of this before, but I don't think I've listened to the whole album.
This is the kind of concept album I can get on with - thoughtful reflections on a theme, rather than a bombastic opera about the random interests of coked-up rock stars. The mix of 90s trip-hop beats with world music is very much my cup of tea.
Never really listened to Talking Heads before, so it's good to get a sense of what they were about. I like their use of Afrobeat influences, to create something new rather than just stealing. But it's a shame that it all feels a bit detached and doesn't have the groove of Fela Kuti.
I'd heard a couple of tracks but never a full album. Interesting to hear what a big influence this must have been on Vent 414, a band I am familiar with.
Not really my thing but the hits are fun. I felt there wasn't much variation in style, and the other songs tended to feel a bit samey.
I'm afraid I had this on in the background while working, so it didn't get my full attention. No tracks leapt out at me, but I may come back to it some time.
I liked this - I definitely enjoy the rhythms and humour in New York hip-hop like this and De La Soul.
As with other Tom Waits I've heard, I'm glad I heard it, I'm glad someone is out there doing this kind of weird stuff, and it isn't something I'd listen to regularly.
I want sure I knew any Eels tracks, then it started and I was immediately hit by a rush of nostalgia for mid-90s student days. I really liked this, there's something about the style and arrangements that just appealed to me.
Of course I already knew and loved this. Listening carefully reminded me just how strange and varied it is.
Embarrassingly, it's also only now that I realised how few women there are on this list. Shameful.
Good to be removed if this and give it a proper listen. An amazing piece of work.
Listened to the first couple of tracks, and I was bewildered how this uninteresting nonsense got to be on the list - especially given my discovery a couple of days ago that less than 20% of the albums on here are by women. Is there really no album by a woman that deserves a place more than this?
I looked up the band to see if I was missing something, and learned that they used to regularly play in blackface because they thought it was 'edgy' or something. So I'm done here. Second album on the list that I haven't bothered finishing.
As with the previous Curtis Mayfield album on the list, the smooth sexy style isn't entirely my cup of tea. But this is clearly great, love the anger and the political message, and the style is growing on me.
Loved this. Nice to hear some jazz that isn't experimental and wilfully difficult.
The original 70s blues rock that this is imitating already felt derivative and dull to me, and I'm definitely not interested in a copy of the copy. As with Led Zeppelin etc, the macho posturing is ludicrous and there's a strong hint of toxic maculinity.
Brilliant. The production is amazing, it's as though Leonard Cohen is whispering into your ear in a confined space. Probably a coffin.
I have to confess this is another concept album I actually like. Reflections on a theme. I think you need to listen to the album on its entirety, no songs stood out especially for me.
Interesting. The hip hop and south Asian weekend work really well together.
Heard this loads of times. Listening again, I was stuck by how much angrier and more immediately accessible it is, compared with her wordy and introspective later albums.
I'd listened to this before but it was nice to pay more attention this time. I think I may be getting converted to the idea of concept albums, which is surprising. Quite an achievement to make something this wildly odd and geeky and creative, and make a commercial success out of it.
Nice! I've listened to Neil Young a bit but never too CSNY. I like the politics and the harmonies and the country flavour.
Interesting. I'm afraid I listened on my phone and didn't give it enough attention, busy morning. I was surprised by the odd spoken word stuff on it.
Nice. I love Mermaid Avenue and have never got round to listening to more Wilco. Nothing stood out hugely though, and sadly, double albums that come up in this project always feel like a bit of a chore.
Nice, fun to listen and groove along to. It's a shame but I think it's hard to get a sense of how exciting this music was in its time, because it's become so fundamental to a lot of other things we listen to.
This was a bit of a rollercoaster ride.
At first I was extremely skeptical. A double album of seventies blues rocks did not appeal. It sometimes feels like there are more seventies blues rock albums by bearded men on this list than the total number of albums by women.
Then I grudgingly had to admit that there was more interesting stuff going on with the production and musical styles than I'd expected.
Then he started singing about loving teenage girls and calling women sluts.
I once owned all the Smiths albums but didn't listen much to any of them apart from 'The Queen is Dead'. Partly it was because they're tainted by the knowledge that Morrissey is a fascist prick. But this reminded me of the other reason - the killer tracks are really great, but for me the rest of this really is filler, nowhere near as good. And this album doesn't have many of their best songs on it.
Angular art rock is not really my thing, but this doesn't sound quite like anything else I've heard on this list, and that's good.
Never heard them before, and I genuinely couldn't figure out what I was hearing at first, in a good way. Really interesting blend of genres and influences, but the songs didn't grab me.
It was OK but I'm not sure why it's on the list. A bit like Sonic Youth but not as good.
I enjoyed this a lot, and I imagine it would be even more fun if I knew enough hip hop to spot all the bits that have been sampled. I did spot something I knew from Bentley Rhythm Ace.
I enjoyed this. It's was almost good enough for me to overlook the fact that it's partially to blame for the abomination that was Blur's comedy Cockney phase.
Lots of fun. Had me boogying in the kitchen.
I'm not sure this is really influential or significant enough to be on this list, but I enjoyed it because electronic music from this era makes me nostalgic. The one track I already knew was from the Spaced spundtrack.
70s blues rock by rich white men continues to be the thing I reliably dislike most on this list. Musically, I actually enjoyed this, though. It's much more about the groove than about macho posturing guitar solos etc. Lyrically, however, it contains some of the most eye-watering misogyny and racism I've heard in this project so far, which is really saying something. 'Brown Sugar'is absolutely not something anyone should have to hear EVER, let alone something everyone needs to hear before they die.
