My 1001 Albums Journey

Albums Rated

3.55

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1047 albums remaining

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1970

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New-wave

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5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
White Light Gene Clark	5	2.84	+2.16
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo Devo	5	3.13	+1.87
The Sensual World Kate Bush	5	3.17	+1.83
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector Various Artists	5	3.3	+1.7
We Are Family Sister Sledge	5	3.48	+1.52
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music Ray Charles	5	3.49	+1.51
Band On The Run Paul McCartney and Wings	5	3.66	+1.34
16 Lovers Lane The Go-Betweens	4	2.94	+1.06
The Last Of The True Believers Nanci Griffith	4	2.96	+1.04
I See A Darkness Bonnie "Prince" Billy	4	2.97	+1.03

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Black Holes and Revelations Muse	1	3.59	-2.59
Play Moby	1	3.46	-2.46
Blood Sugar Sex Magik Red Hot Chili Peppers	2	3.5	-1.5
Unknown Pleasures Joy Division	2	3.47	-1.47
Dear Science TV On The Radio	2	3.16	-1.16
Roger the Engineer The Yardbirds	2	3.11	-1.11

5-Star Albums (7)

View Album Wall

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

1-Star Albums (2)

All Ratings

Ray Of Light

Madonna

3/5

We all thought Madonna was ancient when this came out, but she was younger than I am now. I liked this album in 1998. It was a cool departure from her earlier work and I enjoyed the nods to trip hop and other electronic genres that I hadn't been too familiar with. This was my first listen since around that time and I found the record to be really interesting musically, even though Madonna's vocals seem a little distant and disaffected. The album has a lot of strong songs, but could use a little bit of editing. I'd give 3.5 if they'd let me, but closer to a 3.

Dear Science

TV On The Radio

2/5

Not a big TVotR fan, but I did find many of the arrangements on here to be very interesting. Some of these songs are quite good, but also a handful of clunkers.

Pink Moon

Nick Drake

4/5

More of a Bryter Layter guy myself, but all three of Nick Drake's records are great.

The Specials

4/5

Yeah I love The Specials, this is fucking great.

Play

Moby

1/5

I admit some of this is fine for a passive listen, and it's easy music to plug into a movie soundtrack or whatever. But for real, this shit sucked 25 years ago and it sucks now. The worst songs are the ones where Moby does "vocals."

Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

3/5

I like Nick Cave just fine, but this isn't among his best. Enjoyed listening to it, though. "Let the Bells Ring" is really a standout.

Exodus

Bob Marley & The Wailers

4/5

Four stars for "Waiting in Vain" alone.

Seventeen Seconds

The Cure

4/5

It's great. Gotta save the five stars for the Cure records to come, though.

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

Ray Charles

5/5

Knew some of this music going in but was kind of mid on it. Got completely turned around. These reinterpretations take the songs (many of which are very good) to a whole other level. Absolutely fantastic Sunday morning music. (Have no idea why the book double-dips these two records; five stars is for the first one, which I think is a lot stronger and is the one most people think of when they think of this project)

Hypnotised

The Undertones

3/5

Had never heard of them apart from "Teenage Kicks," which isn't on this record. It's fine. Kind of grew on me the more I listened, but still found myself wishing I was listening to The Buzzcocks or something instead. The "Under the Boardwalk" cover is truly terribly, though.

A Night At The Opera

Queen

4/5

The highs are really high here, obviously. It's fun and innovative, and there are cool sonic experiments. But there's also some kind of run-of-the-mill prog rock on this record that can be a little too much. On balance, a very good, not great album.

Black Holes and Revelations

Muse

1/5

I thought Muse sucked shit going into this listen, and I came away still thinking that.

A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Coldplay

4/5

The only great Coldplay album. Probably the only good Coldplay album, too.

Want Two

Rufus Wainwright

2/5

Want One is so good! So why doesn't this one work for me at all?

Aftermath

The Rolling Stones

4/5

It's the fucking Rolling Stones, of course it's great. "Out of Time" and "I Am Waiting" are some of Mick and Keith's best songs.

White Light

Gene Clark

5/5

This was great. I had no knowledge of anything Clark did outside of the Byrds, but this is right there with anything Crosby, McGuinn, or even Gram Parsons ever did. Loved it. Also, fuckin' great harmonica on this record.

Roger the Engineer

The Yardbirds

2/5

Not for me. I know Jeff Beck is this guitar god but there's only one good riff on the whole album (that riff drags this up from one star to two).

More Songs About Buildings And Food

Talking Heads

4/5

Every pre-1985 Heads record is at least a 4. This one came out in 1978.

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips

4/5

Is The Soft Bulletin on this list? Because that one's a five.

Two Dancers

Wild Beasts

3/5

I recognize this is kinda good and represents something of a movement within indie rock of the time period, but it's just not for me. The songs the main guy sings are better written, but I like the other guy's voice better.

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

5/5

Obviously Spector's a huge piece of shit and the world would be better off if he never existed. But also this is exactly what Christmas is supposed to sound like, so what can you do.

We Are Family

Sister Sledge

5/5

Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards can write the hell out of a groove. "Lost in Music" is a certified banger and I want to listen to it every day.

Smash

The Offspring

3/5

Loved this when I was 14, then hated it for years, listened today and I think it's fine. Surprisingly well played, except for the drummer's extremely 90s habit of switching to the ride to "change things up" on every chorus.

Heroes to Zeros

The Beta Band

3/5

Very pleasant listen. Nothing earth shattering here, but a cool record.

Bitches Brew

Miles Davis

4/5

Felt like a philistine at first, because I couldn't connect with the first disc at all. The second half is full of guitar freakouts and cool electric piano stuff, and really hit. Especially loved "Spanish Key" and "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down."

Back to Mystery City

Hanoi Rocks

3/5

Liked this more than I thought I would. Did not know this was the drummer that Vince Neil killed. He's very good on this record.

I See A Darkness

Bonnie "Prince" Billy

4/5

Dark as fuck, but I did listen to a podcast where chef David Chang said this album kept him alive. Let's call that a win. Good record.

The La's

3/5

One great song, a couple of other good ones.

Wild Is The Wind

Nina Simone

4/5

Everything on this is fantastic. I love how the arrangements lay way back and just let her voice do all the work. It doesn't really feel like a coherent album because of the way it was cobbled together from old takes, but every song is perfect in its way.

16 Lovers Lane

The Go-Betweens

4/5

I love a good jangle.

Band On The Run

Paul McCartney and Wings

5/5

Everything about it is great (but especially the "Let Me Roll It" riff).

Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division

2/5

Can I go ahead and state the unpopular opinion that Ian Curtis was holding this band back? There are obviously some good (great) Joy Division songs here and there, but listening to this in its entirety is a slog.

To Pimp A Butterfly

Kendrick Lamar

4/5

I have nothing to say about this record that hasn't already been said. Very funny reading the dumbest fucking one-star reviews on this one though.

Doolittle

Pixies

4/5

The first Pixies album I got into, so I have a fondness for it. A lot of really great songs, but a few things that I see more as filler these days. I love it, but not as good as Surfer Rosa.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Red Hot Chili Peppers

2/5

Huge gap between the best RHCP songs and the worst. Huge. I'd really rather not deal with all the worst ones.

Green

R.E.M.

3/5

Ok, so I'm the biggest REM fan on earth but I do not understand why this is on the 1001 list. It's by far the worst record of the Bill Berry era of the band (and worse than a couple of the ones from after he left). Obviously it's still and REM record so there's a lot of redeemable material on here. "World Leader Pretend" is great, "Orange Crush" rips, but the tone is really off for the most part, like it's got one foot in Document and one foot jumping ahead to Out of Time, both of which are superior albums.

Bad

Michael Jackson

4/5

MJ has two five-star albums, and this isn't one.

Kid A

Radiohead

4/5

Have always had kind of a love-hate relationship with this album (O.K. Computer is pretty much perfect, then this was the start of a big falloff). I liked listening to it today, though.

Dire Straits

3/5

God I wish I could figure out how to replicate Mark Knopfler's guitar tone. Also, "Sultans of Swing" is an absolutely perfect song. But the rest of the album is solid, not great. I'm a Brothers in Arms guy anyway.

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo

Devo

5/5

It's great. Lots of Devo classics on here.

The Sensual World

Kate Bush

5/5

Yeah it's fuckin' great. Was never totally won over by "This Woman's Work" as I was hearing it in this context. Favorite part of the album is the moment when "Rocket's Tail" opens up.

The Last Of The True Believers

Nanci Griffith

4/5

Had never once heard of this person, but it's good!