1001 Albums Summary

An album I knew well from my early listening history. The big hits (Go Your Own Way, You Make Loving Fun, Don't Stop, The Chain) are embedded in my permanent memory, but while I remembered songs like Oh Daddy and Gold Dust Woman, I had forgotten just how GOOD they were. Other than Second Hand News (which is cromulent but suffers from being surrounded by gold), this album is just one brilliantly-crafted song after another, and it well deserves its spot on the Mount Rushmore of classic rock albums.

Does it remind me of the Beatles? Yes! Unfortunately, the Beatles that it reminds me of is my least favorite kind of Beatles - John Lennon's nasal, repetitive drone songs, though those are still more interesting than most of this album. There are a few highlights - I rather liked "Columbia" and "Married With Children" - but for the most part this one left me cold. And Liam Gallagher's bizarre over-enunciation (especially on tracks like "Cigarettes & Alcohol") REALLY annoys me. <oldmanyellsatcloud.gif>

Not an album I'd actively seek out to listen to, but a great example of music that evokes a time and place (even one that, as a white norteamericano, I have no significant exposure to). Great background/chilling music for the right vibe. El Cuarto de Tula, El Carretero, and Candela are my favorite tracks.

This feels like an album that I need to give repeated listens - the key to everything is the lyrics, and there are some that I just can't catch on the first pass. Love the classic jazz samples that provide the backbone, especially when the rappers call them out ("Ron Carter on the bass"). Lots of great historical music references packed into "What?" as well. And was that Busta Rhymes dropping a D&D reference ("Rawr! Rawr! Like a dungeon dragon")? This is one of those cases where as a first-time listener I think "This sounds like every other hip-hop album," but I'm told it was so groundbreaking that every other hip-hop album - or at least a lot of them - sounds like this. Fantastic wordplay and performances, just not the kind of thing I listen to often.

I was familiar with some of these tracks ("Girls", "Fight For Your Right", "No Sleep Till Brooklyn", "Brass Monkey") via general cultural osmosis, and based on those wasn't looking forward to the rest of the album. There were definitely moments here I enjoyed - "Rhymin' and Stealin'" was fun, partly because you can't go wrong with John Bonham's thunderous drums. But for the most part the album was what I expected - the soundtrack of the beer-soaked frat boys that I hated in college. Simple rhymes about beer and hos and how awesome they were, nothing too complicated that you couldn't slur along to after a few brewskis. None for me, thanks.

First of all, the backing tracks are AMAZING - fantastic sound selection and production. Little Simz has great flow and clearly has Things To Say as a Black woman in the 21st century. I'll admit that I'm not used to a London accent in rap - there's nothing wrong with it, of course, I just need to tune my ears to it. As I've said on a few other rap album reviews, it really deserves more attention to the lyrics on another listen(s) - the rhymes are intricate and dense, and I'm not sure where she breathes in some of these tracks. Favorites for me are "Offence", "Pressure", and especially the aptly-named "Venom".

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this...and that's a good thing. The title track, "The Age of the Understatement", reminded me a lot of early Yes - not as proggy, but laden with baroque lyrics and orchestral arrangements. The next track felt like the B-side of a '60s James Bond theme; in fact, the whole thing feels very classically cinematic. I could hear any one of these songs showing up in a Tarantino film. The songs are short, punchy, and have a ton of character - which I don't hear as often as I'd like these days. Great symphonic parts drench the whole album in atmosphere. I think this might be the first of the 1001 albums (those I don't already own at least) that I actually buy.

It's hard for listeners today to realize just how much this album sounded like nothing that had been heard on the radio before. This album planted the seeds of hair metal in a field full of disco and punk, and also caused tens of thousands of budding guitar players to spontaneously combust. Eddie Van Halen's technique, precision, and sheer speed blew minds across the country, and defined how rock was going to sound for much of the next decade. This was a band that had honed their craft in countless bar gigs, and by God, they were TIGHT - the timing, the harmonies, everything polished to a mirror finish. None of the songs are anything special by themselves (though I have a soft spot for the lesser-known "I'm the One"), but the performances were everything, and they set rock music on fire.

Wow. This feels like a compilation of rejected Doors songs with a tone-deaf Frank Zappa impersonator filling in on vocals for a passed-out Jim Morrison. The music is simple and repetitive, the vocals are somehow both atonal and off-key, the tempo is wildly inconsistent within any given song, and the whole thing has a very "we're too cool to care if this sounds like shit" vibe. There are clear echoes of the Velvet Underground (which makes sense because John Cale produced most of these tracks), and you can definitely also hear early traces of the Cars and the Talking Heads (both of which bands members of the Modern Lovers went on to found/join later). Modern Lovers doesn't have anywhere near the polish of those bands, but I sense that they didn't really want that, so...well done? It's apparently a very important and influential proto-punk album. It's not for me, though.

I'd never heard of this album (or this band), though it turns out that I was previously familiar with "Alright" without knowing who had created it. This is three-chord, slightly punky alt-pop, well-conceived and well-executed. The songs are punchy, short, and fun (though I could do without the Chipmunks-style sped-up vocals on "We're Not Supposed To". Favorite track is probably "She's So Loose" with it's interesting chord choices. Overall, it's nothing that rocked my world, but there's nothing here to object to, and I'd have no problem listening to it again -the very definition of a three-star album.

This sounds exactly what you would expect a Phil Spector Christmas album to sound like. All the Christmas classics (and a few less popular tracks like "The Bells of St. Mary" and "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers") with a super-tight rhythm section, beautifully arranged backing vocals, and the standard "wall of sound" production. There are five different artists on this album, but frankly they all sounded more or less the same...which is what Phil Spector was after. Shame about the whole psychological breakdown and murder thing, but boy could he make records in his prime.

I've known of Amy Winehouse's reputation as a great talent gone too soon, but hadn't listened to any of her material before. God DAMN, what a voice, what impeccable jazz chops and phrasing filtered through an R&B filter and a bad attitude. The very jazzy backing tracks are produced to sound like samples even though most of them were performed live. Favorite tracks are probably "Pumps" and "Help Yourself". It's not an album I'd deliberately put on to listen to very often, but it definitely proves Winehouse's extraordinary talent. I wish we'd been able to hear more of what she would have been capable of.

Okay, but seriously...what the ACTUAL fuck? This is a late-90s album of orchestral pop that sounds for all the world like something Neil Diamond or Englebert Humperdinck would have released in the early 70s. The arrangements are lush and well-done, and the singer takes it ABSOLUTELY seriously, but the lyrics...well, they vary from absolutely sincere pablum ("Someone") to tortuously overextended metaphors that go to really dark and twisted places ("If..."). Not to mention a recurrent theme of wishing his lover was an animal of some kind (dog, sheep, and especially horse). The best track is probably "Timewatching", which plays with the lyrics to a much better song ("When I Fall in Love"). Overall, the lyrics have intermittent moments, but whoever the target audience for this was, it's not me.

This sounds like an album of potentially good songs that's had all of the energy drained from it, like an indie-rock-flavored LaCroix. Even the songs with more energetic rhythm sections ("Little Faith", "Bloodbuzz Ohio") have them buried in the back of the mix, as if the engineer was afraid that someone might start nodding their head in time with the drums. The composition and production are all well executed, and the lyrics are interesting (if incomprehensible), but most of the songs have no dynamics at all. They start and end at the same level of energy - which I'd call "more or less awake" - and don't seem to go anywhere interesting along the way. "Bloodbuzz Ohio" and "England" are the closest to being interesting to me, but they don't quite get there. Still, if anyone ever wants to make a Disco Elysium musical and Sea Power isn't available, this might be the band for the job.

This, for me, is Led Zeppelin at the height of their powers, opening with a fairly traditional blues tune ("Custard Pie") and evolving into some of their most exotic and experimental work ("Kashmir", "In the Light", "Ten Years Gone"). Some of it is classic '70s excess, to be sure; "In My Time of Dying" is a fascinating journey from slide blues to an electrifying series of rhythm section variations, but it definitely didn't need to be 11 minutes long. And, as with almost any double album, there's some filler material; the tracks on side four are fine, but don't stand out among the great music that precedes them. But for the most part, this album shows that Zeppelin were worthy of their previous success and were continuing to evolve. My personal favorite part is "Ten Years Gone", particularly the opening moments when John Paul Jones' bass drops in to provide a fantastic deep counterpoint to Jimmy Page's shimmering chords.

I had never really dug into Lou Reed's work in the past. I knew the inevitable "Walk on the Wild Side", of course, and I was aware of the Velvet Underground as a seminal force in early alternative rock, but hadn't actually listened to much of it. Listening to this album has convinced me that Lou Reed is much like Bob Dylan. This is partly because he's an extremely influential musician whose echoes are still being heard in music decades later, but mostly because he's a gifted songwriter and fantastic lyricist who is hampered by a profound inability to sing. Unlike Dylan, Reed has a very mellifluous voice, but he can't hit a pitch to save his life. Songs like "Walk on the Wild Side" and "New York Telephone Conversation" cover this up by being more conversational, but then we come to songs like "Satellite of Love" and "I'm So Free" where he's singing alongside some really excellent harmony vocals, and his lead lines are just kind of...stuck in there wherever. The production (by David Bowie, no less!) is stellar, and the music is sublime - even the quirky choices (like replacing bass with a tuba) work. I just wish Reed wasn't tone-deaf...although, given that this was the highly experimental New York of 1972, that may have been the point.

Boy, Morrissey sure sounds like Morrissey, doesn't he? All of his songs seem to fall into one (or more) of five categories: * I Hate Myself and Everyone Else * I Hate England and Everywhere Else * I Hate Religion and Politics and Celebrities * You Can't Possibly Understand How Difficult My Life Is * Why Doesn't Anyone Like Me? "The World Is Full of Crashing Bores" sounds like P.G. Wodehouse wrote a pop song. And who else would have the ego to write a song called "I Have Forgiven Jesus"? Morrissey writes good lyrics and performs them well, with a solid band and excellent production behind him, and "America Is Not the World" is still depressingly relevant 20 years after its recording. But he's a massively self-indulgent tortured poet of a man, and apparently rather a racist too, so I don't feel bad for missing out on this for as long as I have.

I don't claim to be any kind of rap connoisseur, but this is good stuff. Queen Latifah has amazing flow over very strong backing tracks, and her special guests also bring the fire. I love the way she brings a wide variety of world rhythms to her music ("She rhyme American, she rap Jamaican" feels very true). My favorites are "Princess of the Posse" and "Ladies First", but there's not a single dead spot on the album. Winner!

This is great English folk of the quiet and reflective variety. The chords are lovely and melancholy; the lyrics are sweet and intelligent, but occasionally slip by unnoticed due to Drake's understated delivery. The album features fantastic string arrangements ("Day is Done", "Fruit Tree") that enrich the whole sound without overcoming the voice and guitar that are at the heart of the music. A fantastic album for certain moods, and a crucial record of another talent gone too soon. Favorite tracks: "Three Hours", "'Cello Song"

The band sounds like they might be decent if you could hear them through the huge swathes of muffling reverb. The vocals are annoyingly atonal. All in all, it's an indistinguishable mass of noise to me. I actively dislike this and have no desire to listen to it again.

Classic early '80s metal, with the thunderous bonus of Steve Harris putting a shot of adrenaline into heavy metal bass. There are some weird moments where the tempo goes wonky, but the band is 100% together, so it's not really a problem. Favorites: "The Prisoner", "Run to the Hills"

It's...fine, I guess? Nice production, good arrangements, solid performances, but it all kinda sounds the same to me, and doesn't particularly grab me. Favorite track: "Rebellion (Lies)"

Jerry Lee Lewis was a grade-A asshole. Marrying his 13-year-old cousin would get him that label all by itself, but add in some bigamy, spousal abuse, the suspicious deaths of two of his wives, accidentally shooting his own bass player, and generally being a mean, abusive, racist, egotistical, drunken bastard. His style (and this performance) may have been groundbreaking at the time (at least for white audiences), but today it's pretty old-fashioned and all kind of sounds the same. Leave it in the dustbin of history.

Smooth grooves, nice harmonies, tight production. This sounds almost like it could be a lost Squeeze album (meant as a compliment). The second half (what would be side 2 back when albums had sides) is slower and more melancholy - still good, but less interesting to me. Still, overall a very pleasant surprise from a band I only knew from "Don't Dream It's Over". Will definitely be digging deeper into their discography. Favorite Tracks: "Chocolate Cake", "Whispers and Moans"

The pipes on this man! The groove of the backing band! The arrangements! This album more or less defined the slow, sexy soul ballads that are a centerpiece of R&B to this day. The songs do eventually sound a little bit alike, but given that this was the album that you'd start playing just before you and your partner got busy, it didn't need a lot of variety. All of the vocals (except the backups on "Just to Keep You Satisfied" and presumably the...excited young lady at the start of "You Sure Love to Ball") are Gaye, multitracked to provide an amazing one-man chorus. A titan of its era, even if the title track is the only one you know.

How mind-blowing it must have been to hear Hendrix when all of his material was new - every album doing things the electric guitar never had before, setting the stage for decades of rock music to come. He was an intuitive and organic musician, but also worked exceptionally hard to make his albums the best they could be. This is a double album full of brilliance, from the extended blues masterpiece that is "Voodoo Chile" (featuring Jack Casady and a young Steve Winwood) to the rock-pop precision of "Crosstown Traffic". There are a few weak spots - "Little Miss Strange" sounds like a Monkees tune with a Hendrix solo bolted on top (not to throw shade at the Monkees) - but all in all it's full of brilliance from Hendrix and his co-conspirators.

It's smooth jazz. Very influential, very well-performed, very groovy smooth jazz with absolutely no flaws...but in the end, it's not anything more or less than an exemplary specimen of the style. Also, most of the lyrics are in Portuguese, which may be a positive or a negative based on how much Portuguese you speak and how important lyrics are to you. Favorite tracks: Só Danço Samba, Vivo Sonhando, and yes, the iconic "The Girl From Ipanema."

I don't know what I'd call this, but I think I like it. A wide variety of styles here, from the experimental ambient instrumentals of "Brother Woodrow/Closing Prayer" to the slow sinister blues of "I Keep Coming Back" to the almost folky "Fountain and Fairfax". It's interesting and engaging, and though some of the tracks go on long enough to outstay their welcome, it's overall a very pleasant surprise. Favorites: "Gentlemen", "Debonair"

I never realized that "Sister Sledge" were four different singers - yes, all sisters - who sang lead vocals on separate tracks, but (at least on this album) never sang together. Regardless, this is a classic disco album, released only a few months before disco fever in the US finally collapsed. It's a fine example of the genre - great beats, surging romantic string sections, and endlessly repetitive choruses (the title track is over 8 minutes long). And surprising absolutely no one, Bernard Edwards KILLS the bass playing throughout (he and Chic partner Nile Rodgers wrote and produced the album). "You're a Friend To Me" has a slight reggae vibe, which isn't what one would expect from a disco album, but it works. It's a great snapshot of the popular music of its day, polished to a mirror sheen - but I'm glad we've moved on.

Man...if I was still in junior high school, this would have sounded edgy as FUCK. Incredibly fast drum and guitar work topped off by somebody tonelessly screaming word salad about blood and death and torture and murder (and, y'know, literal Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele). The production is good, at least, and the musicians are very technically skilled; there are noticeably several places where the drums are going too fast for the guitars or vice versa, but no one seems to have time to notice, and there's no meaningful way to tell one song from another anyway. I guess this might have been impressive or groundbreaking at the time of its release, when this was new and shocking; music to scare your mom/pastor/congresscritter with. Now it just sounds like a hyperactive parody of itself. Best part: you can get through the whole thing in half an hour.

Well, I liked it better than Definitely Maybe, but it still kinda reminds me of my least favorite Beatles tunes. Still not a fan of Liam Gallagher's voice, still think the guitars are too shrill and brittle, still feel like the entire mix was put through a high pass filter to kill the bass, still feel like most of the songs are several choruses too long. Favorite tracks are probably "Morning Glory" and "Champagne Supernova", because they at least do something a little interesting and different from the rest of the album.

This sounds like a reasonably competent bar band of middle-aged guys who are going through the motions to support the guy who writes all their songs, who is a pretty good guitar player and decent lyricist even though he can't sing for shit. The harmonies are solid - better than the lead vocals for sure - but the whole thing has a very "recorded in one take without any effort to mix anything" vibe. "Ragged" is right. I never understood the passion some people have for Neil Young, and this album did nothing to convince me.

If you have one album that contains "Norwegian Wood", "Michelle", and "In My Life", that's a 5-star album even if the rest of the tracks are blank. But we also get to enjoy classics like "Drive My Car" and "Nowhere Man". Not all of the remaining songs are gems - "You Won't See Me" and "Run For Your Life" don't do a lot for me. But in addition to the R&B and even country influences, this is where the Beatles started experimenting with sitars and other non-traditionally Western instruments, and started treating the studio as an instrument, which would come to full fruition in later albums. Just great songwriting on full display.

Lots of good funk, with LOTS of different flavors mixed in - ska, reggae, late-'80s guitar rock, classic soul, punk, and I even feel like I hear some Frank Zappa influence here and there. There's something for everyone here, and I dig it. I don't know if this broke any new ground, but these guys sound like they'd be a helluva lot of fun at a party.

The first part of the album is theoretically several different songs, but they all sound the same to me - masses of liquified keyboard angst with moaning emo vocals on top. Later on, the band remembers that they also have a guitar player, and start doing some songs that are a bit more different/interesting - "Fascination Street" is a heck of a groove, even at its funereal pace. It's extremely well performed and produced, and doesn't sound like anything other than itself. It's a great example of what it's trying to do, but what it's trying to do doesn't particularly interest me.

Classic slow lovemakin' funk, with wah-wahs and clavinets...but Mayfield's high falsetto vocals just don't quite click for me. He's clearly passionate about his vocals, but the high range doesn't work for me. I can hear how it influenced Prince, though I never liked his falsetto work much either. Killer band, great grooves, but the vocals bring it down a notch for me.

Great vintage keys and sounds married to songs that don't do a lot for me. There are some winners here - I really dug the stretch from "In the Cold, Cold Night" to "Ball and Biscuit" - but a lot of the other songs just seem to sort of meander around for a while and then wander off. They're clearly a very talented group that has studied and absorbed a lot of older rock and integrated it into their own material...I just don't always enjoy what they do with it.

A couple of talented young brothers - solid songwriters, amazing harmonizers - produced into a clean-cut, extremely marketable package, trying to hang on to the perfect '50s through the turn into the tumultuous '60s. The only recognizable tunes from this album for me were "Cathy's Clown" and the original version of "Love Hurts", which I knew much better from Nazareth's cover in the '70s. The rest of it seems like a perfect time capsule of its day - well-performed, but not something I feel a particular desire to listen to.

These don't really feel like songs; they are free verse set to music, often without a recognizable verse/chorus structure or even a defined melody. (The exception is "Centerpiece", a beautifully rendered blues/jazz standard that feels like a curious digression in the middle of everything else.) The music, jazzy and flowing, is fantastic, featuring a number of LA session superstars, Steely Dan alumni, and superstar musicians in their own right. The lyrics are poetic and meandering, but intelligently written and beautifully sung. This isn't the sort of album that you can sing along with, but it's a beautifully crafted listening experience.

Sharp, flowing lyrics with more than your recommended daily allowance of F-bombs, flavored with as many samples from old kung-fu movies as there are from classic R&B. I'm no hip-hop expert, but this feels special, even though it's not the kind of thing I'd seek out to listen to. Favorite tracks: "Protect Ya Neck" and "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'"

I always thought that Bob Dylan was a great songwriter hampered by the fact that he was a lousy singer (and an even lousier harmonica player). After listening to this album, I'm not convinced he was even that good a songwriter. Repetitive, simple chord progressions limp along under lyrics full of bizarre metaphors that almost rhyme, if you squint a lot. Okay, the King of the Philistines refers to LBJ, but is Dylan actually SAYING anything about it? I'm not sure the Emperor has any clothes at all.

A pleasant surprise for me. Very much a product of its time, but with elements that feel like they belong to later decades. Folksy, rocky, country-y, jazzy - there were some electric piano moments that reminded me of Steely Dan. The instrumentalists are excellent, vocals and harmonies are smooth. Occasionally things get a little sloppy or silly, but these are clearly people who are having fun in the studio.

An iconic example of the gothy post-punk genre. Very well written, performed, and produced. It's just not something I'm particularly into, unless maybe I'm playing a game of Vampire: The Masquerade.

She's a better singer than Lou Reed, though to be fair that's a pretty low bar, and she doesn't clear it by a lot. Very nice baroque-folk instrumental arrangements (Jackson Browne on guitar will do that for you), accompanying vocals and lyrics that are...fine? The slow and portentous lyrics tend to bring out Nico's German accent at inopportune moments, and sometimes her voice goes just a little TOO low and gets pitchy. Overall, it's not particularly my cuppa, but certainly not terrible. (Well, to be fair, "It Was a Pleasure Then" IS absolutely terrible, but the rest is okay.)

When I saw this referred to as a "Madchester" album, I had a terrifying flashback to Happy Monday's "Bummed", which I loathed. Thankfully, this is much better than that; production is clean, vocals are clear and actually carry a tune, and the performances are solid and clearly audible. And as a bonus, the songs are different and innovative in cool ways rather than an undifferentiated mass of sound. It's well done; not my favorite style, but always solid and often catchy. Favorite tracks: "Waterfall", "Bye Bye Badman", "Shoot You Down", "I Am the Resurrection"

Classic jam band music mixed with deep soul. The rhythms are powerful and the performances are solid, but some of the tracks do go on a bit too long. I can definitely hear echoes of "Low Rider" and "Spill the Wine" - great rhythmic funk.

I knew all of the hits (meaning about half the album - this album had a ridiculous number of hit singles), and they're brilliant as long as you can handle Morissette's very distinctive vocal delivery. But it's some of the hidden tracks that really hit me - "Perfect" is an AMAZING meditation on parental pressure, for instance. Fantastic production throughout, and even if you don't like the way she sings, you have to admire the ridiculous amount of vocal control she exhibits. Morissette writes great lyrics, and while all songs are about something, these songs are really *about* the things they're about, if that makes any sense. I really like this album, is what I'm saying,

Some good lyrics to be sure, and I always found LL Cool J charming as an actor, but the pace is a little slow and simple for me in most cases. "Milky Cereal", as silly as it is, had a lot of fun rhymes, and none of this was bad, just not something I'd especially seek out. Favorite tracks: "Murdergram" and "Farmers Blvd. (Our Anthem)".

This has been a favorite of mine for a while. David Clayton-Thomas' debut with the group produced most of their big hits - "Spinning Wheel", "You've Made Me So Very Happy", "And When I Die", and "God Bless the Child". Killer horn arrangements, a fantastically tight rhythm section, fearless changes of tempo and style between bars, and Thomas' muscular vocals make this a classic jazz-rock album. It also contains my least favorite BS&T song - "Sometimes in Winter" is a fine piece of music, but the lyrics are cringe-inducing for me. And "Blues, Pt. 2" is basically a long series of noodling instrumental solos with a generic blues tune tagged onto the end. The rest of the album more than makes up for those weak spots, though.

Early Pretenders were a lot punkier than I remembered, except that they know multiple chords and the lyrics are all intelligible. The second song on the album is in 7/8, for goodness' sake! So basically, these are clever and sophisticated songwriters with a punk attitude, which I appreciate. Chrissie Hynde has an amazing voice - sexy, playful, fragile, and furious by turns. I'm more a fan of "Learning to Crawl", but this was definitely a debut album that promised great things in the future. Favorite songs: "Tattooed Love Boys", "The Wait"

A perfectly cromulent album of '60s easy listening country folk. Last track is an odd, long, raga-flavored instrumental. Well performed, well-written, but there's nothing outstanding that would put it on my personal 1001 albums list. I recognized "Everybody's Talkin'", but that's about it.

I was worried that this would be a generic disco album for about 30 seconds, and then the band kicked into a proper salsa groove and all was right with the world. Blades, Colón and their band (including 5 trombones and no other horns) are in top form here, and it's impossible to listen along without bobbing your head (if not your whole body). Fun little musical quotes along the way (from the "William Tell Overture" to West Side Story) keep it entertaining. Couldn't tell you what the songs are about, but boy does it groove! Favorite tracks: "Buscando Guayaba" y "Siembra"

Energetic punk, except with actual melodies. I hear echoes (or, in some cases, precursors) of REM, Green Day, Klark Kent, and a lot of later indie/alt-rock. It's not my thing, but it's a good album from a clearly quite influential band. Favorites: "Ice Cold Ice", "She Floated Away", "Up in the Air"

I never really got into ELO - they always reminded me of a more orchestral, more synth-heavy, lower-energy, slightly cheesier version of Queen, and this album did nothing to change that opinion. Great harmonies, great production, but the whole thing kind of leaves me cold. There are some clever moments (like the strings quoting "Rhapsody in Blue" in "Birmingham Blues"). And someone clearly got a brand new vocoder and is eager to play with it. But overall, it's...fine. Favorite track: "Turn to Stone"

Lush '70s orchestral pop. Not something I'm particularly into, but BOY are these songs polished to a mirror sheen. Amazing harmonies and arrangements, with sharp, catchy hooks. A top-quality example of its genre.

Huh (complimentary). I had never heard of this band, and I probably wouldn't have listened to them when they were popular; they remind me of the "pretty boy" bands like Duran Duran that I disdained at the time. But like Duran Duran, they're actually pretty damn fine musicians - the bassist and percussionist particularly excel in these funky, mildly Latin-flavored tracks. They remind me a bit of Level 42, another Britpop band formed at the same time who ended up with a longer and more impressive career. It's catchy, tight, and well-put-together.

This isn't music for listening to - it's music for dancing to, and I'm not much of a dancer. So for me, it's just more repetitive techno beats with nothing that really appeals to me. Each track has about six words of "lyrics" - usually sampled from other, better songs - repeated ad nauseam like every other instrument. I'll pass, thanks.

While not quite as innovative as some of Hendrix's other material, Axis is a stellar example of boundary-breaking guitar. It's easy to hear the seeds that were planted for so many guitarists and songwriters in the decades to come. Favorite tracks: "Little Wing", "If 6 Was 9", "Castles Made of Sand"

I don't get techno (or EDM, or DnB, or any of its uncountable sub-sub-variations). There are some cool riffs - "Brown Paper Bag" and "Hi-Potent" for example - but they lose all meaning when they're repeated a few hundred times in a row with no variation. I am far from the target audience, and I'm okay with that. This is another one of the "excellent example of a genre I don't care about" albums.

I had always heard of Bad Brains as a punk band, and there are definitely a lot of punk elements here, but it's the kind that's actually *musical*, which I like. There's also a lot of variety in the music, which you don't always get in punk-influenced stuff. Not always crazy about the shouty vocals, but I like more of this album than I dislike. Favorites: "Re-Ignition" and "Secret '77"

I love a lot of the songs on this album, mostly due to the amazing, rubbery, bouncy bass of the incomparable Bakithi Kumalo. It was also my first introduction to the incredible singing of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and to African rhythms in general. And the performances and production throughout are stellar, with a wide array of guest stars from all around the world. But the more I learn about it, the more I learn that Paul Simon is, by all accounts, kind of a dick. I appreciate his songwriting and his ability to introduce world music to the larger U.S. audience, but I can't give it a full five stars.

Short, quirky, guitar-focused songs. I recognized "There She Goes" from the more successful (and IMO better) Sixpence None the Richer cover, but it's a solid composition. These are all perfectly good songs, but nothing that really calls to me. Favorites: "Liberty Ship", "Way Out"

Frank Zappa was a genius over many musical genres, but this isn't my favorite of those genres. With the exception of "Willie the Pimp", these are all extended rock/jazz/fusion instrumentals that display a staggering amount of instrumental prowess (as all Zappa's work did) but aren't actually all that enjoyable to listen to. There are moments of beauty and coolness, but also extended stretches of ear-punishing dissonance. Not something I'll seek out to listen again.

She has a fantastic, passionate voice, and the music is well-performed and well-written. Her songs remind me a bit of Joni Mitchell - they often don't have a traditional verse/chorus structure, but are more like free verse. Some of her rhymes don't quite click for me, but otherwise it's a solid album.

This one tends to get me in trouble: I don't like this album very much. Yes, it was hugely successful and hugely influential, but I never quite understood why. The songs are all fine - some ("In Bloom" and "Lithium" for me) are better than others, but none of them blew my mind or justified its enormous commercial and critical success. I'm not saying you're wrong for liking it, but it's nothing special to me. Sorry, Kurt.

This is clearly Gabriel's "I'm out of Genesis and I can do anything I want now" album, in which he plays with a wide variety of genres - "Moribund the Burgermeister" could easily have been a Genesis track, "Waiting for the Big One" is a straightforward slow-burn blues, and "Down the Dolce Vita" is an orchestral pop piece that could easily have been part of a '70s movie soundtrack. There's even a barbershop quartet segment with some polka-style tuba throwan in. Other than the omnipresent "Solsbury Hill" and the melancholy "Here Comes the Flood" (which is better in its later stripped-down recordings), none of these tracks have really become classics, but I can definitely hear the seeds being planted for what Gabriel's music would become.

I only knew Harry Nilsson as the "lime in the coconut" guy, but he's got a lot more going on. These are short, peppy, well-written songs that play with lyrics and rhythm in a delightful way. It's a very '70s album, but a very good one.

An eloquent and melancholy set of story-songs, all carried along by Mark Knopfler's mournful vocals and exquisitely tasteful guitar. There's only one "hit" on this album, but there are also no weak spots.

Beautiful voices and masterfully played acoustic guitars (plus a variety of other folky instruments), telling sorrowful stories that still manage to contain a hint of hope somehow. Favorite track: "Down Where the Drunkards Roll"

The problem with nu metal isn't that it combines metal with rap - it's that it combines average metal with bad rap. This album is no exception.

There's really nothing else that sounds like Supertramp. I guess Queen is kind of close, but there's something about this mix of spectacular harmonies, clever lyrics, fantastic arrangements, and great performances that stands apart. This album is full of bangers - "Bloody Well Right", "Hide In Your Shell", "Dreamer", "Rudy", and the title track - and none of the other tracks are weak. It's all good stuff.

I always thought the Doors were overrated, but upon listening to this album it occurs to me that I actually just think Jim Morrison is overrated; this band is extremely talented and tight. Even Jim Morrison is an excellent singer; I just feel like his reputation as an Earth-shattering "poet of a generation" countercultural icon is overblown. But what do I know? I was six months old when this album came out.

Light synthpop/techno - a genre that doesn't generally appeal to me - from a band I've never heard of. It's well-written, well-played, and well-produced; if I wanted to listen to this kind of music I'd definitely listen to this again.

The Queen of Soul earned her crown on this one (as though she hadn't already). She's at the top of her game with a great array of songs and a great backing band/arranger, and there's no stopping her.

You got your "Message in a Bottle" and your "Walking on the Moon", and those are all-time classics, obviously. But there's so much other good stuff in here; "It's Alright For You" is an underrated favorite of mine, and "Bring On the Night" and "The Bed's Too Big Without You" are both bangers. And then, on side 2, we get a trio of Stewart Copeland's songs, which are deliberately a bit goofy but also musically very interesting. It's diverse and energetic and just 100% solid, and explains why the Police were on their way to becoming the biggest band in the world.

I like this better than I did "Transformer" - there are parts here where it feels like Reed is actually singing - but it's still not something I'd choose to put on. It's apparently a concept album about the sad lives of an abusive, drug-addicted couple, and it's just about as cheerful as you'd imagine from that. The musicianship (apart from Reed's vocals) is excellent, and the compositions are well-made...but I can't help but compare this to another concept album that came out the same year and was...quite a bit better, that being "The Dark Side of the Moon". That's not a fair comparison, of course, but it certainly makes the choice of which album to listen to a no-brainer.

Many of these feel less like songs and more like song fragments, well-produced vertical slices of music that are maybe a verse and a chorus and some other bits, but that meander around for a while and ultimately don't go anywhere. It's apparently a famous unfinished album, and I can feel that. There was certainly some potential there, but as it is I'm not sure what makes this album so important.

I knew of Aimee Mann from 'Til Tuesday (and from being one of the few outside artists to ever appear on a Rush album), but wasn't really familiar with her work. Her voice is a little reminiscent of Chrissie Hynde, but without as much snarl in it. Nice harmonies, great production, thoughtful lyrics.

This is one of those albums that make me reconsider all of my opinions. This album has all of the sloppy production, not-quite-on-pitch vocals, and other earmarks of early punk-adjacent music that annoy me in other albums - but here, somehow it all works. Gordon Gano's hitched, nasal delivery perfectly fits the simple, angsty, sex-obsessed lyrics, and Brian Ritchie's acoustic bass work is frankly phenomenal. I can't tell you why this album succeeds for me where so many others fail, but it does.

I was a prog snob in 1982, and wrote off Duran Duran as a bunch of pretty boys who probably didn't even play their own instruments, Well, guys, I'm sorry - this is some great musicianship and excellent songwriting (by the band members themselves), and I'm sorry I didn't give you the credit you deserved at the time. It's not a perfect album, but it's a damn good one, and John Taylor is a hell of a bass player.

Guitar chords, vocal melodies, and lyrics all appear to have been selected at random by rolling dice on a table of entries that all hate you. The best thing about this album is that none of the tracks are over 3 minutes long, and a bunch of them are less than a minute. Unfortunately, that's still too long.

The hits ("Heart of Glass", "One Way or Another", maybe "Hanging on the Telephone") are as solid as they ever were; the rest of the songs are a grab bag at varying levels of quality. An iconic album, yes, but not one that has survived the test of time as well as it might have.

These are really good, clean, well-produced beats, but they don't do a lot for me. There are moments I really enjoy, but a lot of it just kind of goes in one ear and out the other. I don't think I'm the target demographic, but I can see why the folks it's aimed at would enjoy it.

So if I'm reading Wikipedia correctly, this was a heavy metal parody band that accidentally helped invent punk? Cool, I guess. For me, they're not quite dumb enough to be funny, and the music is neither good enough to be impressive nor bad enough to be amusing. I feel like it's one of those parodies that is close enough to the target that it's hard to be certain it's actually intended as parody.

Classic Afrobeat from when Afrobeat was just being defined. Great performances, great rhythms, although the songs can get a bit long and repetitive at times.

Neil Peart was a brilliant lyricist...but not in 1976. Everything is a little naïve here, from the "my guitar will save the world from fascism" sci-fi-fantasy of the title track to the "hey, we're singing about DRUGS" snicker of "A Passage to Bangkok". But BOY, is the music good. This is the moment when Rush decided to just go all-out and make the album they wanted rather than what their label wanted, and it turned out pretty well for them in the long term. All three musicians are in top form, and the album is packed with fantastic riffs. Geddy Lee's vocals are still in his "extremely shrill" phase, but - just like the lyrics - it gets better. It's showing its age, but it's a fantastic harbinger of what's to come.

Yes, Mark Knopfler is a brilliant and unique guitarist. And yes, the hits you know ("Money For Nothing", "Walk of Life", "So Far Away") are as great as they always were. But the rest of the album is full of interesting songs that go to unexpected places. Tony Levin's Chapman Stick on "Why Worry" and some unexpected slap bass on "One World" provide musical variety, and Knopfler's poignant triptych of songs about soldiers - "Ride Across the River", "The Man's Too Strong", and "Brothers in Arms" - give the album unexpected weight for those who are expecting more songs about installing microwave ovens and moving color TVs.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this album; I'm just not sure why it exists. This is a bunch of talented studio musicians recording an esoteric selection of covers (and a few simple originals), all focused on disco-style beats with extended percussion breaks and, as the name suggests, an awful lot of (quite good) bongo playing. "Apache" is certainly recognizable since it's been sampled a thousand times, but the whole album kinda sounds like it was written and recorded for the sole purpose of being used in some distant future Tarantino soundtrack.

It's not my jam, but I can respect the flow. It's easy to listen to this and just hear the drugs and guns and profanity, but there's more to the story; it's a shame a promising career ended the way it did.

Brazilian easy-listening techno-jazz from a Serbian producer? Sure, okay. It's smooth and polished , but it's also pretty repetitive and doesn't really seem to go anywhere interesting.

Industrial noise-punk. It's apparently a groundbreaking and very influential album, but it's not something I enjoy listening to; in fact, I'd classify most of it as "actively unpleasant," which may be the point. Great potential for horror movie soundtracks, but it's not going on my playlist.

Dolly Parton is the closest thing we have to a living saint, and I adore and respect her beyond words. That said, this isn't really my jam. I respect the craftsmanship - this is a woman who wrote most of her own songs (and wrote some all-time classics) and performed them at a very high level - but old-school country doesn't really grab me. Parton does a fantastic job of using her country dialect to make rhymes that shouldn't work work ("Traveling Man" has some great examples), and the backing band is rock-solid.

This is a classic Paul Simon album - very clever lyrics, a wide variety of musical styles and instrumentation, and excellent production. Only a handful of the songs are really memorable, but none of them are bad. Extra bonus points for letting Stéphane Grappelli cut loose on "Hobo's Blues."

I never "got" Elvis. By the time I was old enough to pay attention, he had already become the drug-addled "fat Elvis" that later parodies dwelled on. But this album is from he was fit and (mostly?) drug-free, and it's...fine? Country soul blues with a great backing band and singers, and Elvis being Elvis. Some of the songs (such as "I'll Hold You in My Heart (Till I Can Hold You in My Arms)") really emphasize the parts of his style that are easy to parody, to the point it's hard to take them seriously. And then there are the songs that I know from other, better versions ("Gentle On My Mind" and "Any Day Now"). Maybe it would have done more for me if I'd paid attention when it was new, but at the moment it doesn't do anything for me.

Was David Bowie a generational talent as a songwriter, singer, and performer? Yes. Is this an essential Bowie album? Meh. The production is gorgeous, the performances stellar, the lyrics cryptic...but none of it is especially catchy or memorable. If I sat through the album repeatedly and really delved into it, I would undoubtedly find parts that I loved, but on a single listen, it's...good.

Great instrumental jazz that brought Samba to the USA. Fantastic for listening to while sipping a caipirinha. My dad would have loved this album (and maybe he did). Here's to you, dad.

Wasn't familiar with these gents beforehand, but I'm intrigued. Good riffs and strong songwriting, well played and recorded. Not a big fan of the singer's delivery, but I can get past that. The lyrics are almost all about a bunch of lads spending an evening 'round the club, but somehow they manage to stay fresh. It's a little bit punky, a little bit funky, and a lot alternative...and I kinda like it. The bass line on "A Certain Romance" breaks my brain a little, but it's okay. Also, thumbs up for some great song titles (my favorite is "Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But...").

Beck makes good beats and flows over them well. The Latin vibe puts a nice touch of variety in the mix, though maybe there's some cultural appropriation going on there. Not something I feel the need to listen to often, but if it were playing, I wouldn't ask anyone to change the station.

This has long been billed as an amazing and seminal live album, and it's...fine? To be clear, the Who were four fantastic performers at the top of their game, and this is an energetic performance with no major mistakes. But it's short (6 songs, half of them covers), and any audience noise is mostly absent, so it kinda feels like the band just jamming for half an hour or so. They jam well, and the energy is high, but none of this is particularly Earth-shattering for me.

No vocal blend has ever sounded better than this (though there are some that sound equally good). There are some absolute killers on this album: "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", "Guinnevere", "Wooden Ships", "Helplessly Hoping", and "Long Time Gone" are all on my all-time playlist. The rest of the album is fine - not great, not terrible, but not up to the standards of the five mentioned above. Still, a 50% hit rate is fantastic in anyone's book. This album also made me realize what a really good bass player Stephen Stills is. But really, it's all about the harmonies; the way they sing "yesterday" in the last verse of "Guinnevere" gets me every time.

Van Morrison is one of those artists with a stellar reputation that, to me, his music doesn't live up to. He's a talented singer and a good songwriter, and he's backed by a talented band that does a great job keeping up with his (apparently heavily improvised) performances. But maybe it's one of those cases where you had to be there. This is, for me, a fine recording of what was probably a pretty good set of concerts.

Very interesting. I made a note at one point that read, "What if the B-52s wrote an antiwar song?" The lyrics are pointed and brutal, the performances polished and precise; it reminds me of some of Peter Gabriel's work, and I mean that as a compliment. I don't think it's something I'd listen to for enjoyment, but it's a meaningful and well-executed work.

I may be a little biased on this one, as my older brother had this in regular rotation when I was growing up. But news flash: Paul McCartney is a really good songwriter, you guys. I'm not sure I can tell you what most of the lyrics mean, but almost every tune on this album is catchy as hell, with hooks polished to razor sharpness. The performances and production are top-notch, especially when you consider the really crappy conditions under which the album was recorded. Winner.

Tom Waits confuses me. I dislike "singers" like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Lou Reed because, well, they can't sing very well. But Tom Waits "sings" like a man who's been drinking bourbon by the gallon, smoking a carton a day, and gargling gravel for 50+ years...and I love it. Maybe it's because he's an absolutely peerless lyricist, or that his delivery is perfect on every line, or that he absolutely embraces the, er, uniqueness of his voice rather than trying to mask it in any way. This is a set recorded live with a veteran jazz quartet, and shows Waits in full showman mode. It's not his best work, even from this era (that would be Small Change), but it will definitely let you know which side of the love it/hate it Tom Waits divide you're on.

Good production. Good rhymes. Good flow. But I do not need an hour of rapping about literally nothing but gun violence, drugs, and abusing women. It may be a realistic reflection of the "gangsta" lifestyle of the time, but it's not something I want to listen to.

Grrrl-punk energy with a lot more than the classic three chords. The lead singer's voice sounds like it's constantly on the verge of breaking up, which certainly gives the songs a certain energy. And no bass player? Heresy! Not really my thing, but it's a good example of what it wants to be.

Unusual and very interesting. Great acoustic folk with influences ranging from Nashville to England to the Beach Boys. There's a very '60s feel to the whole thing, with a strong dash of Britpop thrown in. Great harmonies, simple but effective instrumentation, lyrics that somehow sound both traditional and unique. I dig it.

Yep, classic '80s new wave synth-pop. "Don't You Want Me" and "Love Action (I Believe in Love)" are both memorable (in that I remember them), but the rest of it is fairly generic.

Radiohead is another of those bands that is considered to be seminally important to modern music, and at least based on this album, I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Don't get me wrong - there are some great riffs and rhythms here, and the production is spectacular. But there's a lot of repetitive ambient noodling that just doesn't do anything for me. I wouldn't mind having it on in the background while I'm trying to get work done, but I wouldn't seek it out to actively listen to.

Yay, more gangsta rap. Look, Snoop is a gifted rapper and lyricist; this album is full of great samples and beats, and a lot of great verses that flow really well. But the relentless parade of abusive misogynistic sex, violence, and drugs gets old fast. What would Martha Stewart think?

Boy, could these two harmonize! And Paul Simon, despite the fact that he appears to be kind of an asshole, is a helluva songwriter. I find it ironic that he wrote a (spot-on) Bob Dylan parody ("A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)") when some of his own lyrics are clearly written in a very Dylanesque school. "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night" is a little mawkish, but there are enough really good songs here to overcome that, even though there are usually better recordings of those songs on other albums.

I enjoyed this one more than I expected to. It has a bit of a "What if The Cure had gone to therapy and gotten on some good antidepressants?" vibe to it. Nice production, good performances, interesting lyrics. Would listen again.

A live album of long, "psychedelic," mostly instrumental jams. These guys grew up alongside the Grateful Dead, and I rate both bands about the same, which is to say, "I'm not stoned enough to enjoy this."

Classic Motown, led by Gaye's extraordinary voice(s) and passionate lyrics, and underpinned by the mighty bass of two legends, James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt.

I don't hate this as much as I've hated the other Lou Reed albums I've listened to as part of this project. A lot of that is because much of this album is sung by people other than Lou Reed - that is, people who can actually sing. It's still not something I'd put on by choice, but I wouldn't ask someone to turn it off...which is an improvement over the previous albums.

Before Kanye became (or at least went public as) an anti-Semitic right-wing nutjob, he was a pretty good rapper. Not something I'd really seek out to listen to, but I don't mind it. "Spaceship" and "Slow Jamz" were the highlights for me.

Great modern jazz from a potent trio, including legendary bass prodigy Scott LaFaro in (I believe) his last recorded performance before his untimely death at 25. You've got to be in the mood for jazz to enjoy this, but if you are, this is as good as it gets.

Some fun grooves ("Brain Drain") and good production, but I'm not a fan of her vocal style. Sometimes things get weird; "Why'd Ya Do It" sounds like Adrian Belew joined a reggae band.

Like the White Stripes' Elephant album, this has a lot of great vintage sounds with songs that I could largely take or leave. There are some winners here, for sure, and overall I enjoyed this more than Elephant, but it's still not something that I'm likely to put into heavy rotation.

"Cinnamon Girl" sure is a great riff, and features great harmonies by Danny Whitten. Unfortunately, it's also very repetitive and doesn't go anywhere, which holds true for most of the rest of the album. Strong harmonies (which serve the added bonus of masking Neil Young's voice a lot of the time), good riffs that don't go anywhere...kind of like Neil Young's guitar solos, which are each predominantly one note repeated over and over. Still, most of the music is fine.

I recognized (and liked) a few of these, and the rest were solid. Not a genre that I usually chase down, but it's good stuff and I approve.

Slow, sad, simple, well-made alt-country. That's not a genre that appeals to me, but this is clearly a great example of it.

I'm not particularly a Willie Nelson fan, but this one gets a special nostalgia bump for me because my parents LOVED this album and so I heard it a lot growing up. Simple arrangements, beautifully delivered, of classics from the Great American Songbook. It's not usually my genre, but listening back to this made me smile.

Smoove R&B. Sounds like music I could comfortably fall asleep to, and it's well-executed, but not really my jam.

These are great, lush performances from a potent combo, but honestly they sound more like a movie soundtrack than a jazz performance. But it's a REALLY GOOD movie soundtrack, one that I'd probably buy after seeing the movie. Favorites: "Vibraphonissimo" and "Laura's Dream".

I've officially confirmed that death metal is not my thing. This album consists of almost 30 songs (using the term loosely) that all sound more or less the same, which is to say that they consist of tremendously fast drumming, chunky guitars, and bursts of incomprehensible vocal growling. Thankfully they're mostly pretty short. Technically proficient, but not very interesting, at least for me.

As usual, fantastic harmonies and thoughtful lyrics. "America" and "Mrs. Robinson" are all-time classics, and "Old Friends" is great. And did you know that Paul Simon wrote "A Hazy Shade of Winter"? I didn't! Good stuff all around.

Well, it sounds less mopey than Morrissey's other works that I've listened to, and some songs (e.g., "Billy Budd") are downright energetic. Still nothing that makes me especially interested in listening a second time, though.

Very dissonant alt/noise rock. The first few songs were at least dissonant in interesting ways, but as the album progressed, it became more and more unpleasant to listen to. There are a few songs I'd revisit, but the rest of the album is not for me.

Apparently this was going to be a Simon & Garfunkel album, but Paul Simon (being Paul Simon) decided it should be a solo album instead, which basically ended Simon & Garfunkel. Not sure how any of these would sound with Art singing along, but as it is, these are mostly solid songs. A few are a little too experimental for their own good, but the title track and "René and Georgette Magritte..." are great.

An interesting mix; the opening track could easily have been a lost Led Zeppelin song, and you can hear the passion in his guitar and voice. The songs themselves aren't particularly memorable for me, but the performances were brilliant. I wish we could have heard more of his work.

Old-school R&B...as old as I am, in fact. "Son of a Preacher Man" is a classic, but the rest of the songs are nothing particularly memorable. "Windmills of Your Mind" is a wonderfully weird song, but I'm partial to the Mel Tormé version. This album is fine, with smooth vocals and a tight backing band, but not something I'll particularly seek out.

Smooth, mellow, polished R&B. Not my usual type of listening, but he's good at what he does. Great grooves, harmonies, and instrumental performances (many of which D'Angelo apparently performed himself). The extremely slow and relaxed way he repeats "Shit, Damn, Motherfucker" in that song's chorus is kinda hilarious.

Meh. Dissonant alt-rock with songs that variously remind me of the Cure, the Violent Femmes, early punk, industrial noise, and various other bands...except they're not as good as any of those bands, at least to my taste.

Slow, dramatic, Gothic new-wave music sung by someone who sounds rather like David Bowie but isn't. Good production, solid performances, not my genre. It doesn't surprise me that the band's longest-serving member is the drum machine.

I did NOT expect to enjoy this as much as I did. It's ambient trip-hop with drum machine beats, random vocal samples, and repetitive, layered synthesizer noises...but it's really well done, and I found it surprisingly pleasant to listen to. Traces of Enigma, middle-years Genesis keyboards...I dunno, man, but I would happily pop this one in when I just needed to veg for a while. And I don't even do drugs!

I never really "got" Johnny Cash - the music was fine, but rather plain for my taste. but it was always more about the attitude than the music, and he had attitude in spades. This reminds me a bit of Willie Nelson's "Stardust" - an aging veteran covering a lot of old classics - but without the nostalgia bump that I got from Willie's album. I respect Cash for his history and his career, but that doesn't make this an album I especially want to listen to.

I've always been more of a Beatles guy than a Stones guy (the two genders of early rock music). This one does nothing to convince me - most of the album is pretty generic, slightly raw and sloppy blues - well executed, but nothing special. The few exceptions ("Tumbling Dice" and "Shine a Light" being the standouts) are a little more interesting, but still nothing exceptional. It's fine, I guess.

Smooth, polished, generic dance-pop. I don't dislike it, it's just not my thing. Well put together and produced.

Miles is a genius, of course. This is a compilation of songs that ride the line between bebop and cool jazz, showing off tight arrangements and high-speed virtuosic solos from Davis and his horn-heavy nine-piece combo. The only problem I have with these songs is that the arrangements are very short, not letting any of the soloists stretch out to any extent. Still, if you like fast-paced jazz, this is a killer.

I'm sorry, Randy. You write great lyrics - they sound deceptively simple, but they've frequently got a lot going on underneath (see "Sail Away"). But I can't hear your voice, with its sort of mopey, understated delivery, without thinking of a decade or more of Disney/Pixar soundtracks (not to mention a great series of parodies of them by Paul and Storm). You write some great songs, but I'd rather hear Joe Cocker or Harry Nilsson, or frankly just about anyone else, sing them.

Dark and metallic and very, very Peter Gabriel. A fantastic array of musicians doing a bunch of thoughtful, moody songs that shouldn't have had any commercial appeal, but did (especially "Games Without Frontiers"). And I'll always remember seeing Gabriel perform "Biko" live - it's one of the most powerful musical experiences I've had. Not his best work, but damn good.

Old school blues-rock, reminiscent of early Beatles/Stones/Zeppelin. Perfectly well-made songs, some good instrumental work, but nothing especially memorable.

Garbage is a band I had always heard about, but never really heard (except the briefly-popular "Only Happy When It Rains"). It's not quite what I expected, but I like it. "Queer" and "Not My Idea" are catchy. Overall it has a bit of a Vampire: The Masquerade club scene vibe, but not in the annoying way that a lot of that music has. A pleasant surprise.

Sounds like the Smiths once they've had a little caffeine. It's perfectly well-done, just not my jam.

There's nobody quite like the Loaf. Bombastic songs delivered with a perfect mix of passion and precision, with an immensely tight backing band and a ton of great collaborators. Anyone else would make these songs feel like jokes - and let's be clear, they're not NOT jokes - but Meat Loaf invested them with just enough gravitas that they were exactly serious enough. This is an album full of fun, energetic, classic rock music, and I love it.

Hey, it's more Neil Young! This means more wavery-voiced delivery of cryptic, half-rhymed lyrics that are inexplicable ("Ride My Llama") where they're not offensive ("Pocahontas"). The music is universally slow and simple, and the songs are frankly hard to tell apart from one another, though there are a few nice guitar parts and some good vocal harmonies. If you haven't guessed, I'm not particularly a fan of Neil Young, and this album does nothing to change that.

Fine songs - clean and polished, good production, kind of repetitive and droney, but not bad at all. Not my genre, but I wouldn't object to it.

I've heard a number of these songs before, but never really followed the Pumpkins. Perfectly good grunge, if nothing mindblowing; some very cool riffs (I liked "Geek U.S.A." a lot), though the vocals aren't as powerful as my personal grunge favorites. Good production, too, especially on the sinister "Silverfuck".

Unexpectedly catchy; a touch of retro folk, reminding me alternately of Paul Simon and some of Paul McCartney's experiments with the Beatles. Good instrumental performances well-produced, with strong melodies. I rather liked it.

This seems weird to say, but the instruments seem British, while the vocals are more American. The lead singer's voice reminds me of Paul Simon crossed with Bob Dylan (except, unlike Dylan, he can actually sing). Very simple and repetitive rhythm section, with other instruments swirling around in the background. Not particularly my cup of tea, but very well done.

There are song here where Williams sounds like Elton John, or Freddie Mercury, or George Michael, and then songs where he sounds like no one in particular. These are very tight arrangements, well-performed, and Williams is a talented singer, but the whole thing feels a little bit soulless; overproduced and polished within an inch of its life. There's nothing wrong with it, and I think that's the problem.

It's weird to realize that this album was released just a few months before the Beatles' landmark Ed Sullivan Show performance...these are definitely good songs, but none of them seem like the kind of thing that would provoke the screaming, fainting mania that the band would generate. Listening to this album with the knowledge of what the Beatles would become is fascinating; you can hear the roots of what's to come, but it's all surrounded in the trappings of traditional '60s pop.

Classic P-funk - great rhythms, tight band, simple lyrics, all repeated ad infinitum. George Clinton and company defined the genre, and they're really, really good at it.

I always thought of Alice Cooper as "that shock-rock band with all the magic tricks in their stage shows." Alice himself has proven to be a very intelligent and thoughtful musician with a great sense of humor. But I have to say that I didn't expect extensive quotes from West Side Story on this album. This is a talented band - I'm particularly impressed by bassist Dennis Dunaway - that is having fun with some clever music, with Cooper's amusingly deranged lyrics sprinkled on top. I liked it a lot more than I expected to.

"Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" is one of those albums that I'd heard about for a long time but never listened to. I don't know what I was expecting an album with that title to sound like, but it wasn't this. It's plaintive and beautiful and strange, with elements alternately reminding me of Pink Floyd or ELP or Porcupine Tree or Sea Power, but it's something all of its own. The one-two punch of "Do You Realize??" and "All We Have Is Now" is a marvelous emotional payoff that seems light-years away from the slightly goofy lyrics of the earlier songs. I'm actually mad that I haven't listened to this album before, and I'm going to go listen to it again.

This isn't normally an album that would have any significance to me, but my freshman year college roommate played it a lot (hi Pete). It's not particularly my style, but there are several songs that are just plain catchy ("Frankly, Mr. Shankly", "Cemetry Gates", "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others") and the album as a whole is funnier than you'd expect from a band like the Smiths ("She said, ''Ey, I know you, and you cannot sing'; I said, 'That's nothing, you should hear me play piano'" - an old joke, but unexpected in a place like this). It's well-written and well-produced, and Morrissey's voice (which I'm not normally a fan of) is modulated well enough to work. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I kinda like this one.

EDM isn't my thing. This album is well-written, well-performed, and well-produced, with clever samples and interesting sound choices...but it's still not something I'm going to listen to by choice.

*Halcyon Digest* - 3 stars. Well produced, but not my cuppa (seems to be a recurring theme). The singer's voice gets weirdly dissonant sometimes in a way that i find unpleasant, though that may be the idea.

Interesting ambient soundscapes. I like the flow of it - some of it reminds me of some of Medeski, Martin, & Wood's more experimental stuff - but it's not something I'd seek out to listen to. Fine to have on in the background, though.

This is about as stereotypical a '60s album as you can get. Most of the songs (mostly written by the label's songwriting team, not the band) are either about "I want to make out with you, girl" or "rich people suck," with the primary exception being the inexplicable "The Toonerville Trolley," which sounds like the theme song to a weirdly nostalgic Saturday morning cartoon. The songs and performances are fine, but not in any way memorable.

Well, that was certainly some music. Droning, repetitive parts interspersed with discordant instrumental stabs, plus lyrics which were doubtless very meaningful to the writer but didn't make any sense to me. An interesting assortment of instruments and clean, lush production, but I just didn't get it.

Classic rock in the purest sense - simple, straightforward, heartfelt, and well played. There's nothing too fancy here (though there are some interesting riffs in tracks like "Commotion" and "Sinister Purpose"), but this music is very good at being what it is. The band is tight, and the swamp-rock sound is uniquely CCR.

Slow psychedelic jams, reminding me of a white Parliament or some early Chicago experiments, with moments that start drifting into Jethro Tull's more progressive years. Lyrics are fairly simple and sometimes cryptic, but the music and harmonies are very well put together and often sophisticated. I think I like it, even though sometimes it gets deliberately weird just for the sake of weirdness.

There's been a lot written about David Bowie - and justifiably so - but I feel like some people don't realize that for a white British bisexual, the man could get FUNKY. This album is a prime example of that. "Fame" is the most obvious example, but there are others scattered across the album. This is the first appearance of what would become his "DAM trio" rhythm section, consisting of drummer Dennis Davis, guitarist Carlos Alomar, and bassist George Murray, who recorded together on seven of Bowie's classic albums in the '70s. "Can You Hear Me" feels almost shockingly modern, like a contemporary gospel track. All in all, this is a great album by a master musician in his prime.

The Platonic example of Gothic rock. Slow, minor-key songs drenched in chorus effects, with Robert Smith droning angsty lyrics that belong in a Vampire: The Masquerade character's backstory. It's not bad, mind you; it's a perfect example of what it sets out to be. But it's not a style that interests me.

Not what I expected from a country album. Still the heartfelt lyrics and the religious references and the wavery, impassioned voice, but it's layered over processed drum machine beats as often as mellow acoustic guitars. It's not my genre, but I respect the talent.

OK Computer is one of those extremely popular, successful, influential albums that I've never gotten around to listening to until today. And it's...fine? The production is remarkable, with deeply layered synths and other instruments producing a cold and sterile collage underlying the meandering, sinister, and cryptic lyrics. But the whole thing kind of leaves me cold; I recognize the skill, but I must be from the wrong generation to truly appreciate it.

For some reason, I had it in my head that Zeppelin's debut album was just a bunch of old blues covers. Now don't get me wrong, those blues numbers (like "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit You Baby") are monstrously effective examples of rocking up the blues. But from the opening seconds of "Good Times Bad Times", this is a powerful statement that rock music is about to change forever. "Communication Breakdown" has been justifiably described as the first heavy metal song. The whole thing is a fantastic collection of world-class riffs, excellent production for the day, and four musicians at the top of their game. No notes.

The man has flow. Great internal rhymes, impressive speed, and some pretty deep lyrical cuts among all the drug and gun references and N-drops. The production is extremely polished as well, and the samples and beats are choice. It's still not a genre that particularly calls to me, but I have to give props to the talent involved.

"Soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist" is a helluva concept for an instrumental album. Unfortunately, the music doesn't quite live up to the concept. There are some interesting riffs and themes going on here, often in a very '60s action movie vibe, but they're held back by extended repetition, some VERY synthy synthesizers, seemingly random dissolution into sampled sound effects, and a frequent lack of musical development.

A perfectly cromulent country album, with clever and wholesome lyrics well sung over well-executed musical backing. It's just not my thing.

Thrash metal isn't my thing, but I know there are a ton of folks that love it, and this album more or less defined it. The performances are strong and tight, and unlike something like the Slayer album I reviewed earlier, the lyrics are actually mostly comprehensible and actually have something to say. And "Orion" stands out as proof that the band can do more than just thrash. Not something I'd seek out to listen to, but a great exemplar of its genre.

I respect Bowie as a talented and influential artist, but none of these songs really called to me. I'm familiar with "Golden Years" and "TVC 15" just from general exposure, but even those aren't among his best songs for my taste. I dig "Stay" for its disco-funk groove, but even it runs too long.

Johnny Cash had an amazing voice, a bad attitude, and a repertoire of classic, simple folk songs (and new songs written in a classic folk style). There's nothing groundbreaking here, but it's solid music well performed. I did notice a few cases where phrases ran a few beats longer or short than I'd expect, but the band all followed Cash and it never became a problem. This is more important as an event than as a live album, but it's solid.

This album is a little bit out of time...smooth, lush productions of songs that would fit just as well coming from Marlene Dietrich. And what a fantastic voice! This isn't an album I would have picked off a shelf, but I love it.

It's the story that make this album special. A sleep-deprived, underfed pianist in a back brace is given a crappy, ill-maintained rehearsal piano that can barely be gotten in tune before the show, and proceeds to improvise an hour of amazing music. You can hear him feeling out the piano in the early moments, determining what part of its range works best and how to compensate for its shortcomings. As he gets going, Jarrett emits a lot of his characteristic moans while playing - he's described it as being too full of emotion and having to let some out, and I get that. You can even hear the overly-loud shifting of the piano's pedals in places, and it sounds like Jarrett is almost turning them into a percussive instrument. I'm surprised that this is the best-selling solo jazz album and the best-selling piano album in history, as it doesn't strike me as the kind of thing that would appeal widely. I think it's pretty amazing, though.

I was, of course, familiar with "Come Out and Play" and "Self Esteem", but was pleasantly surprised by the rest of the album. Strong surf-punk with good musical variety and clever lyrics, even if the lead singer's vocal style doesn't quite click for me.

Smooth, poppy, funky, and very very danceable. Caron Wheeler's vocals are fantastic, although the drop in quality is a bit jarring when Jazzie B steps in to sing. Not my genre as a rule, but it's good stuff if you need to move your body.

Never has an artist been able to make songs about starvation, grinding poverty, and governmental oppression sound so goddamn cheerful. Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer were no longer with the band, but the incredible rhythm section of the Barrett brothers ("Family Man" Aston on bass and Carlton on drums) makes it virtually impossible to listen to this album without moving your body. Fantastic stuff from top to bottom.

The title track, of course, is an epic and hugely successful recap of two decades of popular music history, and "Vincent" is a brilliant, mournful tribute to Van Gogh. I wasn't familiar with the rest of the album, but I enjoyed it; in its meandering gentleness and lyrical complexity, it reminded me of some of Paul Simon's early solo albums. There are a few more upbeat, peppy moments (like "Everybody Loves Me, Baby"), but I think those are the least successful parts of the album. The arrangements are understated but successful, leaving the focus on McLean's expressive voice. I think I'll listen to this again.

I like Tom Waits...usually. This album, not so much. The lo-fi production, kindergarten class percussion, and the bizarre (even by Waits' standards) vocals just make a combination that I don't enjoy. The lyrics are interesting, but there's just too much noise to get through to appreciate them.

I know a lot of folks who are big fans of the Cult, and I just...don't get it. They are about the most generic '80s hard rock band I know of. Their songs are repetitive and all sound the same to me, their lyrics are bland and uninteresting, and they just never seem to do anything musically interesting. There's nothing wrong with the album, mind you, but there's also nothing special about it.

Repetitive, atonal, cryptic, whiny...all words that reappear in reviews of albums I don't care for, and this is one of them. A few tracks (like "Crackity Jones" and "La La Love You") add a little variety to the mix, but overall it's just Not My Thing.

African rhythms, African lyrics, a taste of music that is simultaneously alien and fundamentally familiar. And then we get "Amandrai" or "Ai Du", slow Delta blues numbers (albeit ones with lyrics in Tamasheq or Songhai) that seem like they should be completely out of place, but is still of a piece with the rest of the album. The songs can get repetitive, but in a more trance-like way than a boring way in most cases.

Cherry presents a nice slate of pop R&B, with good rap skills and a strong singing voice. Bits remind me of Gloria Estefan, Paula Abdul, or Madonna, which are not bad artists to be compared to. There are a few weak spots; "The Next Generation" (with it's overly-earnest presentation of a serious topic sounding like a mid-'80s PSA) and "Heart" (with second-grade playground insults played as if they were serious) come to mind, but overall it's solid. Not my genre of choice, but well done.

The rhythms are strong, the riffs are cool, and the lyrics were pointed enough to get the Nigerian army to destroy his living compound and throw his mother out of a window (killing her). It is repetitive, hypnotically so, and the four long tracks are almost interchangeable - LONG instrumental intro, a few verses, LONG instrumental outro. I feel the rhythm and the power, but it's not a regular listen for me.

Eh...no. Atonal, arrythmic, with vocals that remind me of all the things I don't like about Kate Bush. There are a few moments I enjoy, but not nearly enough of them to overcome the noise.

"Bloodsport" is kinda catchy. The rest of it doesn't do much for me. It's like The Cure meets the Ramones, and while adding keyboards to punk is part of an interesting mix, it's not something I especially enjoy listening to.

Elements of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, early Fairport Convention, and even a bit of King Crimson mix around here and interact in interesting ways. Unfortunately, there is way too much shrill electronic noise, swirling circus music, and other sounds that get in the way of enjoying what is actually pretty good music. There's potential here; it's just smothered under too much avant-gardeness, which makes it actively unpleasant to listen to far too much of the time.

Adele has an extraordinary voice, and a gift for songwriting. It's not a style I listen to often, but I have to admire the skill and talent.

It's more gangsta rap. It's GOOD gangsta rap, mind you -smart lyrics, sharp delivery, a genuine sense of humor, and more swagger than you could ask for. The multiple guest rappers mostly serve to show how much BETTER Ice is than them. But it's not my jam.

I had heard of The The, but never listened to their music before. For some reason, I had it in my head that they were a punk band, but that's definitely not the case. I heard suggestions of The Cure, They Might Be Giants, Squeeze, Simple Minds, Godley & Creme, Level 42, and a lot of other acts, but the mix here is kind of a unique thing. It's well-produced, well-performed (including some killer drum and bass work), and generally interesting. They seem to be able to poke fun at themselves while still taking the music seriously, which is a rare gift. On the list to listen to again.

I grew up in New Jersey, but I'm still not a Springsteen guy. He's obviously a great songwriter, and by all accounts an extremely charismatic performer, but I guess I wasn't blue-collar enough for it to click for me. A few years back I learned "Born to Run" for a rock cover band I'm in, and gained a new respect for how much fun it was to play. So maybe I just have to play more Springsteen in order to appreciate it better. But in the interim, I'll respect it without loving it.

Lovely chords and melodies, with a very country/hippie vibe. Excellent work, but I didn't need two discs of this.

These guys were apparently a formative influence on a lot of speed/thrash metal bands, which is not a genre I particularly care for. Unlike some of the other thrash bands I've listened to, they actually keep consistent tempos and stay in sync. The lyrics are still generic pseudo-Satanic gibberish growled in a variety of tempos, and the music still doesn't do much for me, but it's better than many other examples of the genre I've listened to.

I remember a lot of Metallica fans being upset with this album because the band was "abandoning their roots." Of course, it also turned them into worldwide superstars and made them millionaires, so I imagine the band members don't feel too bad about it. This is more enjoyable to me than earlier Metallica. I'm still not a huge fan of Hetfield's vocals, and "Don't Tread On Me" gets massive negative points for inspiring an entire generation of right-wing militant assholes. As a rock album, though, it's pretty good.

The Doors are still an excellent band with an overrated singer - not a BAD singer, mind you, he's quite good, but he's not the lost beat poet of a generation. The hits from this album ("Love Her Madly", "Riders on the Storm", and the title track) are interesting, and there are a few other tracks that go unusual places (the cool rhythms of "L'Amerique" and the bizarre ramblings of "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat"), but the rest is pretty much just blues. It's fine.

It's fine. Instruments and lyrics are good, but there's something in Williams' voice - or rather her delivery - that I don't like. It sort of sounds like she's exerting the minimum effort to get the words out of her mouth; there's no energy to her, and it just rubs me the wrong way. Also I'm not much of a country fan. I had heard "Can't Let Go" before, and it would probably be my favorite track on the album even if I hadn't, but the rest does nothing for me.

From the title and band name, I expected some kind of metal/thrash/punk/industrial noise, but instead I got...this. The opener felt like a lesser-known George Michael single, and then the album slipped into a series of EDM tracks, late Beatles psychedelia, gospel-tinged pop, generic Britpop, and more stuff I can't quite identify. It's all well-done, but it doesn't really say anything to me. Maybe I'm not British enough.

This is an unbelievably significant album musically, socially, and culturally. But is it also a GOOD album? Well, yes. Is "When I'm Sixty-Four" (deliberately) hokey and old-fashioned? Yes. Is it also a fantastic set of lyrics brilliantly set to a delightful melody in a very clever arrangement? Also yes. And "A Day in the Life" is practically a five-star album in and of itself, years ahead of its time. There are weak spots, to be sure; "Within You Without You" introduced Indian music to countless new listeners, but it's a bit monotonous to listen to, and several of the other tunes are fine-but-not-great. I'm tempted to bring it down to four stars because of those weak spots, but in the end, it simply created and inspired too much to get anything less than a 5-star review from me.

The swagger and casual sexism of '80s hair metal meets the synthesizer. The Van Halen brothers remain masters of their respective instruments, harmonies and arrangements are strong throughout, and David Lee Roth's voice is excellent when he's not just gasping and squeaking. Four killer hits plus four filler songs of varying quality ("Girl Gone Bad" being my favorite of them) = four stars.

Bjork is weird by a lot of standards. While she has an extraordinary voice, she does things with it that I don't always find appealing; she reminds me of Kate Bush in this way. But one thing that's apparent throughout the album is the sheer joy she takes in making music. Hearing "There's More to Life Than This" (apparently recorded in the bathroom of a club by singing along with the DJ's tracks outside) back to back with "Like Someone in Love" (a Great American Songbook standard recorded with just voice and harp) makes that abundantly clear. The underlying house music beats are well-done, production is smooth and strong throughout. The vocal quirks may annoy me occasionally, but they can't dim the talent. I'm not saying I want to listen to it recreationally, but I respect the hell out of it.

The follow-up to Rumours! Possibly the most anticipated, certainly the most expensive, album of the '70s. It opens with a classically beautiful (if slightly bland) Christine McVie ballad, which is immediately followed by Lindsay Buckingham's hyperactive, frenetic "The Ledge". This sets a pattern; we get some traditional songs from McVie and Stevie Nicks that wouldn't have been out of place on Rumours, and then Buckingham comes in with some weird, experimental songs that don't really fit with the rest of the album. Some of them work and some don't; all of them make it clear that Buckingham really wanted to break free of Fleetwood Mac and make solo music. The high points of this album ("Sara", "Think About Me", and the eccentric-but energetic title track) are great, but there's a lot of disjointed filler.

Four tracks, with the shortest one being over 5 minutes long and the longest over 18. This is classic Isaac Hayes - long, repetitive, groovy soul music with a tight rhythm section and soaring strings supporting that amazing voice. Long spoken-word sections over instrumental vamps make it feel more like a live album in places. It's lushly produced and well-performed, but just goes on too long to be a regular listen.

For a long time, I wrote off AC/DC as a pretty basic band. Drums and bass are about as straightforward as you can get, and the vocals (whether by Bon Scott or Brian Johnson) aren't anything that really appeals to me. But with a full listen to this album, I finally realized that the Young brothers are pretty damn fine guitarists. Great riffs, strong solos, and general top-notch work. It gets a little repetitive after a while, but they deserve more credit than I've been giving them.

The one that started it all. Hit after hit (at least on the US release): "Purple Haze", "Manic Depression", "Hey Joe", "The Wind Cries Mary", "Fire", "Foxy Lady" - each one revolutionizing what the electric guitar was believed to be capable of. Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding were great, but let's be honest - this is all about Jimi. And it's magnificent.

It's big band jazz, though with less of the complex, tight arrangements and more of the extended virtuoso solos. It's good, maybe great, but it doesn't sound like an album that would revitalize Ellington's career (which it apparently did). It also doesn't sound like it would justify that thunderous audience response you can hear during the final track. Maybe you had to be there.

It's hip-hop, which isn't one of my favorite genres. It's GOOD hip-hop, though, packed with clever lyrics, interesting samples, and great beats. And, as an added bonus, it's not about guns and drugs and sex (except in a few spots where it satirizes those tropes).

I never "got" Nirvana. They had some good songs, for sure, but I did not comprehend how they could be such an extraordinary, genre-changing international success. This show didn't do anything to change that for me; other than "All Apologies" (a song I always liked), my favorite songs in this performance were the three Meat Puppets covers. It's a good performance, and Cobain was clearly a passionate singer, but it doesn't blow my mind.

This is a band that could have - maybe should have - gone a long way, if not for a cascade of mental illness, drug abuse, managerial misbehavior, contract disputes, and everything else that could go wrong with a talented band. None of the songs here are instant classics, and some of them feel unfinished but there are roots and signs of tremendous talent. The band is tight, the harmonies are clean, and the playing is energetic and talented. I wish things had gone differently - these guys could have been huge stars, and maybe they should have been.

This is, at a minimum, a fine album. It might be very good; the production is excellent, and the lyrics sound good. It feels rather repetitive, and synth-pop was never my thing, but I think this minimally deserves a second listen.

As a bass player in 35 years' worth of classic rock cover bands, I will be happy if I never have to play - or indeed hear - "Hard to Handle" again. That said, there's a lot of other great music on this album - "Seeing Things", "She Talks to Angels", "Jealous Again" and "Twice as Hard" are all great. Mixing Southern rock (including Chuck Leavell's great keyboard work) with Zeppelin influences, this is just good quality rock music.

It took me about 30 seconds to know I wasn't going to like this album. The music is perfectly adequate synthpop with a talented set of background singers. The problem is Cohen; he doesn't sing, he *intones,* trying to invest the cryptic nonsensical lyrics with some sense of importance. It doesn't work - not for me, at least, although apparently there are lot of people who are big fans.

It's better than the previous Velvet Underground albums we've had here, at least from a song standpoint, but it's still repetitive and flat, and Lou Reed's vocal delivery hasn't gotten any better. The Library of Congress says it's "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and maybe they know better than me, but I don't have any interest in listening to it again.

I'd never heard of Solomon Burke. He's a fine soul singer, with elements of Otis Redding, Elvis, and John Fogerty in his voice. The arrangements are fine (including some interesting 12-string guitar on "Won't You Give Him (One More Chance)") and the vocals are strong, but it doesn't have the underlying fire of Motown's Funk Brothers or the Stax "house band." It's very good for its time, but doesn't have the staying power of some of the other '60s classics.

It's Morrissey's first solo album, and it's just as pretentious, self-important, and self-indulgent as the rest of his work. It's nicely produced, but the music is mopey and repetitive where it's not dissonant and annoying, and Morrissey's voice is still just deathly dull to listen to. I'm here for the Margaret Thatcher hate, though.

Unexpectedly interesting. Still very energetically tied to their punk roots, but with a lot more musical variety and dynamics than you usually hear from punk. I can hear similarities to Green Day (complimentary), particularly in Joe Lally's interesting and cool bass lines. Some songs I really dig ("Repeater", "Two Beats Off"), while others don't do much for me ("Greed", "Styrofoam") and some have cool riffs but aggravating vocals ("Shut the Door"). Overall, cooler than I was expecting and worth further listening.

This is one of those albums where it's hard to separate the music from its cultural impact. These songs were EVERYWHERE during my freshman year in college, hit after hit coming from every radio, boombox, and other speaker source within range. Listening back, the characteristic ambience of a Daniel Lanois production is everywhere here. The songs diverge widely, from the ominous trudge of "Bullet the Blue Sky" to the almost gospel flavors of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". U2 are a Serious Band, and the solemn pretentiousness of their lyrics is always present, but they are very good at what they do.

This album sounds a little bit out of time; it's giving me '70s vibes. Wainwright's voice sounds a lot like a young Billy Joel, and some of the song structures remind me of Wings-era Paul McCartney. I'm not putting his songwriting on a level with those two all-stars, but it's good, and the production and orchestrations are diverse and interesting. I'd have to be in the right mood for this album, but I'd listen to it again.

The birth of progressive rock. King Crimson is a very hit or miss band for me, but this one is mostly hits (only "Moonchild" doesn't do anything for me). "21st Century Schizoid Man" is an extraordinary display of musical precision, while the title track delights my inner fantasy/D&D nerd to no end. Between King Crimson and ELP, Greg Lake was THE voice of prog for many years, and he always managed to make even the most absurd lyrics sound sincere. And of course, Robert Fripp is one of a kind; perhaps not the best guitarist, but one of the most distinctive. Most of these songs are on my "Best Of" playlist, and I don't expect them to leave any time soon.

The well-known tracks from this album ("Strange Brew", "Sunshine of Your Love", "Takes of Brave Ulysses", and maybe "SWLABR") are familiar enough that they don't seem as weird and psychedelic as they are when not heard in the context of the rest of the album. Clapton, Baker, and Bruce are all masters of their instruments, and the performances are all strong, but the music just gets weird in places. And please, don't let Ginger Baker sing any more.

It's synth-pop. It's well-crafted synth-pop with clever lyrics and great production, but it's not a genre that grabs me. Bonus points for "Go West", which sounds like a Broadway take on a Soviet anthem but is actually a Village People cover.

I generally don't like country music, and this is exactly the kind of country music I generally don't like - twangy, jangly, mopey, musically and morally simplistic tunes about cheatin' women and lonely nights and Jesus. Classic stories like "she left me for another man so I shot her" and "old drunk rebel dies sad about living in Yankee territory." It's fine, I guess, but it's definitely not for me.

Lyrically, it's gangsta rap; musically, it's a little less intense, but still repetitive and not especially interesting from my perspective. It seems like this is a really important and influential album, but it doesn't call to me.

Maybe I'm just being a grouchy old man yelling at a cloud, but why do all of these early 2000s post-punk bands/albums sound the same? It's like they got the same guy to do all the half-sung vocals, the same musicians to play the repetitive, droning rhythms, the same producer to make everything sound like it's coming through an AM radio receiver. (The bass lines are occasionally interesting, though.) I can't tell the bands or the songs apart, and I honestly don't care enough to try. It sounds like the Strokes were one of the originators of this sound, so maybe it was original at the time? Good for them, I guess.

It's old-school county and bluegrass, and while I like the instrumental numbers, the vocal songs don't do much for me. There's a lot of historical significance to this album - the NGDB were a bunch of young California musicians, and this album has them backing a who's who of Nashville music royalty as a sort of handoff between generations. It's also interesting to hear a lot of the studio chatter between tracks as the musicians talk through arrangements and such. I'm not going to spend a lot of time listening to the album, but I'm extremely glad that it happened.

This is pop-punk, yes, but it's high quality pop-punk. Clever arrangements, tight performances, strong production, all proving that you can play aggressive, snarky music without sacrificing the musicality. As a bass player, I'm a huge fan of what Mike Dirnt does on this album (and throughout the rest of the Green Day oeuvre). Good stuff.

What surprised me most about this album is how much of it doesn't feel like straight heavy metal. "Remember Tomorrow" and "Strange World" are more like rock ballads, while "Running Free" is a fairly mainstream heavy rock number and "Phantom of the Opera", while heavier, is almost proggy. Overall, it's solid, but none of the songs really stand out. You can definitely hear the band's potential, though.

This is repetitive Goth electronica in which nothing particularly interesting ever happens, with one exception: "Soul Auctioneer" is like listening to a goth Bob Dylan do a very slow Red Hot Chili Peppers imitation.

The Pet Shop Boys continue to produce good-quality, reliable, danceable synth-pop. I don't know that I needed to hear three albums of it (so far) before I die, but it's a perfectly good album in a genre that doesn't excite me.

I liked a lot of Elvis Costello's early stuff. This one, not so much. It feels like Dylan with the pretentious, cryptic lyrics. Musically, it reminds me a bit of some of Tom Waits' later experimental stuff, in that someone who clearly knows how to write melodies and harmonies is deliberately making stuff that is periodically dissonant and atonal to prove that he's serious. Or something. The band is still tight, but they're not playing anything I especially want to listen to again.

There's a lot to be said for a band that explicitly sets out to defy conventions, but still maintains a strong sense of musicality. From an LSD trip set to an ever-building Spanish march ("White Rabbit") to a straight-ahead rocker that opposes the prevailing Free Love philosophy ("Somebody to Love") to a joyful 12-string acoustic instrumental ("Embryonic Journey"), this record goes places. Some of the tunes are more straightforward psychedelic rock, with echoes of the Grateful Dead and the like, but overall this is a talented band that is working hard to break out of musical ruts.

This is classic '50s early rock and roll. Driven by strong piano and an excellent voice, these are simple songs well done.

This is a hard album to describe, much less rate. It's a world-spanning mish-mash of folk instruments playing songs that are clearly carefully organized, but don't follow any discernible structure. The lyrics range from weird to totally incomprehensible, and parts of it sound like odd numbers cut from a Monty Python album for not being quite funny enough. The instruments are played well, but the vocals are often just out of tune enough to be maddening. I'm going to give it two stars, because it's interesting but I Just Don't Get It.

The music is repetitive but the grooves are good. And that's about it...strong riffs played over and over. I did not expect "Mambo Sun" to be that funky - strong start!

Look, R&B isn't really my genre...but you gotta respect talent. Beyoncé can sing, rap, and write, all at a very high level, and she picks excellent producers and collaborators to get everything done exactly to her liking. This is rhythmic and raunchy and clever, and the fact that I'm probably not going to listen to it again doesn't take anything away from that.

Sometimes you hear an album by a one-hit wonder band and wonder why they didn't go on to have greater success. Then there are cases like this, when you hear an album by a one-hit wonder band and wonder how they ever got a hit in the first place. I understand that these folks have a devoted following in the UK, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Lead singer Kevin Rowland's moaning, yelping, mostly incomprehensible vocals are an acquired taste that I have no desire to acquire, and while I normally love a band with a horn section, these horn arrangements are just...dull.

Johnny Cash was a good showman and knew how to handle an audience, or at least an audience of prison inmates. His songs are musically as simple as you can get, but he delivers them well. The audio quality is pretty bad, even by 1960s live show standards. This isn't an album I'd listen to more than once, but it's interesting as a historical document.

Like most Simon and Garfunkel albums, this feels like a collection of experiments, some successful and some less so. The title track and "The Boxer" are classics for good reason, and some of the lesser-known tracks ("So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright") are also great. The two harmonize beautifully as always, and the musicians and production are top-notch.

It's a brave white man who leads off an album in 1974 with a song that drops the N-word at least half a dozen times as the refrain of the chorus. It's a satire - and a good one - but if you don't listen to the lyrics very carefully, that's easy to miss. Beyond that, this sounds like all the other Randy Newman albums I've heard, in that every song sounds exactly the same musically but the lyrics are clever enough to deserve more interesting music.

"Detroit Rock City" is the best and most musically interesting song Kiss ever wrote, and it shows that Gene Simmons could actually play bass if he wanted to. Other than that, this is Kiss dressed up in a cheap business suit; it's not as simple and dumb as their previous music about girls and cars and rock and roll, but it's still written to a formula aimed at profit and popularity rather than quality. And still, none of the band members can sing worth a damn.

Nobody sounds like the Talking Heads, that's for sure. Listening to this album - which predates most of their better-known hits - makes me realize that I really like the music, but really dislike David Byrne's yelping, coyote-like vocals. It seems like he settled down into a more human range in the later albums, and that works for me better. Or maybe I just like the later songs better because I know them better? It remains a mystery.

These are all definitely sounds, and someone clearly made an effort to order and mix them together. Sometimes they resemble music; most often they sound like recordings of industrial machinery and/or the keyboard room in a music store with a bunch of random sequencers going off at once, along with distorted, not-quite-audible voices muttering in the background. I cannot for the life of me figure out why someone would create or enjoy this, but if you do, good for you. I do not.

This is not complicated music, but it's perfectly executed by a backing band of Nashville's very finest, working with three magnificent voices in their prime. Their vocal blend suggests that they were always intended to sing together. It's a flawless album in a genre that doesn't do a lot for me, and normally that gets three stars, but I'm writing this the day after Dolly Parton passed, and I can't not give Dolly one extra star for the road. Best track: "Telling Me Lies"

As the title implies, most of these are the kind of Meaningful Songs that were so popular in the 80s - how badly we've been treating the planet, how badly we've been treating each other, what assholes the rich are. Those songs are interestingly arranged and don't sound like a typical George Michael number, though they're more than a little pretentious in their solemn, repetitive self-importance. Then we have "Freedom! 90" and "Soul Free", which are exactly the kinds of polished pop singles that made George Michael famous in the first place. They don't really fit in with the rest of the album, but they're solid pop tunes.