1001 Albums Summary

Not my cup of tea at all, but I can see how it's lauded by fans of the genre...

"Oh, this is just great. First Homer Simpson wrecks my pig, then Cypress Hill steals my orchestra, and now Sonic Youth's in my cooler. Get out of there!" Well at least now I get the third part of the quote. Pretty sure Noise Rock is not my thing though...

Barely acceptable as background noise - these 90's rap artists must have been so insecure given all lyrics are talking about their dicks or chicks.

Recognised 'Islands' from the radio but nothing else really resonated. It's clear it's 'first album' material but it doesn't engender the wish to go look for anything else.

Definitely a product of its time that starts strongly (the singles are the standout, as you'd expect), the album loses steam towards the end but is still a good listen.

One-half easy-listening/elevator mood music, one-half soundtrack to a 90s-era PC transport management sim or Game Boy visual novel. Sexy Boy is a classic.

A good listen, as you'd expect from Bowie, although I feel some of the earlier songs are a bit inconsistent compared to the singles and the latter half of the album.

~40 minutes of classic metal glory, plus Planet Caravan. 🤷‍♂️ Enough has been written about War Pigs, Paranoid and Iron Man that there's not much else to add, but don't skip on Electric Funeral, Hand of Doom or Fairies Wear Boots either!

The sort of mid-00's anonymous pop-rock that was ultimately so milquetoast it allowed someone else to lift their best song and effectively make it their own.

Whilst the many talents of Marvin Gaye are fully evident, listening to this album unfortunately just confirms that I simply do not like the majority of his work.

It's good to build out your understanding of artists by listening to works other than their big hits, but ultimately this did to me what other R&B and Soul tend to do - just wash over me, leaving little lasting impression.

Late-model commercial Elvis - the period where the bangers were few and far between, but when they hit, you thought 'yeah, that was a good one. Nothing inherently bad here, but I also spent the listening time doing other things and none of the songs really grabbed me or made me thing 'yeah, that was a good one', which basically sums up

I found some of the more energetic tracks entertaining, especially when they built up a head of steam, but I can't get behind the vocals, which are fairly indistinct and sound like they were recorded using a mic in the next room. Once of those groups that only really gel if you found them at that special time in your life when every artist was the best ever.

If you ever wanted to know what a 60's school dance actually sounded like, I guess this is the album.

Everything is typically weighted towards the Big Three (Jungle, Child and Paradise) but there's more in there if you dig below the surface, even if it's clear why they don't tour them. It's easy to criticise the album for being very samey, but given it's a debute album from a fairly young group (at the time), can you expect much else?

Whilst I *appreciate* Nirvana, I greatly prefer their contemporaries and successors. In Utero, as a sum of it's parts, is way too raw for me - I prefer Nevermind's more mainstream feel - although some of the tracks are very good, specifically Heart-Shaped Box and Very Ape.

Revolution Blues landed! The rest didn't...

I've never listened to a Wailers album (or pretty much any reggae album full stop) but I was blown away by ~40 minutes of pure bangers (8 of which are on the Liked list).