1001 Albums Summary

A great template for a newer sound, love the guitar as almost percussion instrument

I can appreciate this one, but really didn’t enjoy more than a couple songs.

Definitely one of my favorite Christmas compilations now

Great production, skilled lyricist, but none of the writing aged well. This was some 13-year old fantasy stuff, and it was a really tough listen. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more consistently homophobic or misogynistic album.

Definitely some weaker songs here, but this is such a fun guitar album - I think the riffs and solos carry even the weakest songs like they were KG dragging the Wolves to the conference finals.

The last song was such an amazing payoff for an album that came close to doing some really cool things but instead seemed content to fade out before making the leap. It was relaxing and enjoyable overall, but I don’t see myself coming back to it again.

It’s fun and catchy, but there’s nothing groundbreaking here. I gotta say, Americana is my favorite Offspring album and I’m curious why they chose this one

I really enjoyed this one musically - I thought it was an underrated headphone album and aside from some of th lyrics was a great listen

This album sucks so much butt. It was everything I don’t enjoy about prog rock and classical music all at once.

This is one of my favorite albums of all time, and it was really good to hear that it stands up to my memory of it. Lyrically it’s untouchable, but one of the best parts is how much it feels like you’re in the room while it’s being created; there aren’t any apparent overdubs and there are mistakes and instruments out of tune and people finding their place in the song in real time. The whole thing is so alive and magical.

Definitely a good glimpse into why Johnny Cash is so revered. The songs can be a little same-y but the performances and the rapport with the audience and band are great.

Could have lived with less Nazi references, but it’s really something to hear a bad arrive so fully formed. Their subject matter, style, and delivery are all in place right out the gates and it really a tour de force Completely unrelated, but I meant to rate San Quintin 4/5.

This is a lot of really well played nothing, if this were to have pivoted and been an instrumental/jazz album instead I think I would rate it much higher. Even then, the music wasn’t terribly memorable. I find the lyrics to be pretty shallow and uninteresting; in general this seems like a way station on the sad slide from soul/r&b into yacht rock.

I don't think I've listened to a full Foo Fighters album in a long time - I've kind of thought of them like a John Mellencamp where the singles are catchy and enjoyable and I wouldn't change the station if they were on but the album tracks weren't worth a full dive. Listening to this one again after all this time changed my mind a bit - the singles are clearly the stars, but it's overall very catchy. The lyrics are pretty forgettable, but they don't get in the way of the hooks and the melodies and most of the non-single tracks are still pretty dang fun. It's definitely a bit front-loaded and could stand to be 2-3 songs shorter, but way more fun than I remembered and definitely earns it place on radio rotation.

If you told me this was a Spinal Tap album, my only question would be "why isn't it funny?"

I’m a sucker for this instrumentation and these traditional. Really enjoyed the format too.

I started out strong on this, loving the beats and the energy, and very quickly got tired of it. I'm sure there's more nuance to someone who is a big fan of this genre, but by the end I was exhausted and barely able to tell songs apart. Went from a 4 to a 3 about halfway through for me. Frankly the 3 feels generous.

This is very much a specific sound, it lives in that space very well. I can’t understand 80% of the words though, I don’t really understand or appreciate albums without a lyrical purpose.

This album is a classic, even if it sounds a little brittle. I feel like all of the discourse/reviews of the album really miss just how FUN it is on top of everything else.

Today I found out that David Byrne is a huge bike dork and cycling advocate and nothing has surprised me less.

This was so much fun fun, it’s everything I want out of a jazz album

I love murder ballads in the abstract - they're definitely in that folk/field/traditional song set that I'm attracted to. The lyrics here are well done, the instrumentation is great. I am lukewarm on Nick Cave's execution though - he falls too far into that "Theater Kid" subset where it's too far over the top and too much of a "look at me playing a part" style that takes me out of the song a bit.

Oh man, I recognized the opening from MF DOOM, but I really don't love soft R&B/slow jams. Great voice, but same issue I had yesterday with Nick Cave - it's performance > song. This is some department store background music.

There are some truly great songs in here, and some really amazing guitar playing. There's also an absurd amount of bloat between gratuitous transitions/interludes and self important expository tracks. If Ziggy Stardust was an example of a concept album done right, this is an example of why people hate concept albums. There's a 4 or 5 start album buried under at least 25-35 minutes of garbage.

I loved the first half of this album, such a great drum sound and production that serves the song. The second half wasn’t as gripping, but still interesting especially in contrast to the first.

Everything about this album is exciting and cohesive, everything is timeless and in olace

I liked it more than Daft Punk, but this really isn't for me.

This album was a bit too long and has some…dated…insults but was a lot of fun overall

This feels a little too much like a bad PJ Harvey imitation. Just couldn't get into it.

Man, good guitar and such. I love Brothers in Arms, but this didn't quite have the same variety and engagement for me as that. Wild that Knopfler is British with his inflection.

I hadn’t listened to this intently in so long, it kind of took me by surprise how immediate it is and how hard the music itself hits. Is it all stolen? Yeah, but man do I get why it influenced generations.

With the exception of one or two songs, this just sounded like the music used for action sequences on late-2000s tv shows on the USA network.

I found the music interesting to a point, but didn’t dig the vocals or the lyrics. I generally don’t care for this era of britpop though.

This is like an awesome version of Coldplay

Kind of funny getting this one the day after I referred to Doves as a way better/more interesting version of Coldplay. I think this album is underrated, and if it weren't for songs like "Clocks" and the band following that thread more, they would be regarded very differently.

This is just Rush for people born after 1990

I don’t love multiple movements in a song, overproduction, or layered harmonies so this is very much not for me

This album was the first time I’d really paid attention to Bill Callahan (I think I had a Smog album before this), and I remember being pretty floored. Holds up great

A bunch of terrible lyrics and bland music held together by ear candy

Man, this was a blast. Longer than necessary but still great. Biggest downside is that apparently this pioneered skits on albums, which was a terrible thing.

Pretty surprised by how much I enjoyed this

It’s amazing that he did something like this so young

A really dark record that is criminally overlooked. Really pleasantly surprised to find it on this list. Be Sweet has one of the best payoffs I can think of.

Maybe I was just not in the mood for it, but this felt way less consistent than I remembered. The highs were still really high, but the rest was kinda meh and bloated.

Man, this is the Tom Waits album that never was

It was fun, but it’s hard to fully enjoy songs without understanding the words

I really wish Bono wasn’t Bono

This is functionally two albums, both of which have a lot of filler. Again, chalking it up to not being in the right headspace, but this was pretty exhausting as a full-album listen. Highs are high, lows are way more frequent than they needed to be and skits are among the worst things to happen to hip-hop.

This is some genuine weirdo music, everything the Talking Heads think they are.

I love this album, especially the sound of it. I love sparse arrangements and harsh sounds and dynamics.

Absolutely a top 10 for me. Such a great combination of other styles tied together

Dave Mustaine is an amazing guitar player, a terrible lyricist, an an embarrassing edgelord

I cannot imagine a worse sounding idea than a 20 minute multi-movement futuristic space opera about some Ayn Rand bullshit sung in THAT voice

There were a couple huge hits and a lot of synth noodling without purpose

A bop and a half

I didn’t like the Eminem album because it was juvenile, misogynistic, and gross but at least he was clever. This is hopefully one of the lamest set of lyrics I’ll ever hear, assuming I don’t have to listen to the albums that came after this.

It was enjoyable in a not-terribly-memorable way

If a jam band had nothing but a wah pedal and an insanely good bass player, this would be the outcome

This is some theater kid shit. Some great songs from what I listened to but I just cannot possibly do 3 hours of it.

This was some good fun

There are some great moments, but I didn’t realize the history of unnecessary skits and sound effects went back this far.

This was a lot of big, dumb fun

Forgotten James Bond songs and fragrance commercial music

I kind of tapped out on this. Big band jazz doesn’t do it for me at all, but I appreciate what’s going on.

I dig this one, felt way ahead of it’s time

Such a weird album for that time and genre

Beats do some heavy lifting. Another example of skits making 0 impact in anything but 7th grade lunch table humor.

Electric Ladyland is the better album, but this is still great

It was cool to learn that this came out even before the Damned released anything, but it felt very generic even though it was so early to the game.

One of my favorite albums, love how everything fits together and Al the voices.

I really enjoyed this, but it was wildly repetitive

If we only rate on guitar and drums, this is a 5/5. If we consider Billy Corgan’s singing and lyrics, less. Thank god his personality isn’t part of the rating.

Gets a little annoying after a while, hard to understand too. Nonetheless, kind of hard not to enjoy the energy and excitement.

These songs all sound like the inner monologue of a very bats ke reality tv show person

Musically pretty fun, the vocals got really old really fast though.

This album was insanely annoying to me, but in a lot of different and inventive ways.

I enjoy parts in theory, but mostly I appreciate it as an influence on other groups I like.

Man, this was a fun and timely album that actually said something. And then she tarnished it all by being a moron, scammer, and supporting people who are opposed to everything it seems like this album stood for.

I dug this, would definitely listen again. Wouldn’t mind less saxophone though

This is the musical equivalent of a hot dog stand. It doesn’t matter how you dress it up, it still is just a wet fart in the end.

A few true classics carried further by the gravity of an aged, but powerful voice padded by some cutting room floor stuff.

I can’t understand a word but that’s totally fine. I love the textures of this, it’s the musical equivalent of watching the waves or trees in the wind in a National Park.

This is just an album about hugging and kissing for people who only like Schoolhouse Rock

Some of the most annoying voices ever recorded, but the production is just so insanely good.

I really like these grooves, even if I couldn’t quote a thing

The guitars had some cool stuff going, but the lyrics were pretty bad and it wasn’t terribly memorable

One of the most fully-formed debuts out there, this album pure cool

Leonard’s got bars

Honestly this album still sounds really fresh and interesting even now - I can’t imagine how wild this was when it first came out

This is both one of the worst and also one of the least interesting things I’ve ever heard

The guitar is the only thing worth even mentioning

Like the Rolling Stones as an early punk band

This one felt a little aimlessly weird without enough substance.

More theater kid shit. Everything I hate about a rock musical and nothing I like about rock.

I did not enjoy this

Loved it, musically interesting, good slow jams

The first handful of Elvis Costello albums are amazing, this thing is funny, catchy, interesting, and flawless

I’ve tried to like Super Furry Animals before but they just don’t make me feel anything, not even negative reaction. It’s just watching someone doing something like it’s an obligation or assignment without any actual joy or interest in it. It’s fine, but not worth a damn.

This was dooe

I had very low expectations for a reggae album by white British dudes, and that’s the only reason I wast disappointed.

I think people tend to look up to or idolize songwriters because they are able to articulate things that we struggle to find words for. No need to worry about that here. Not a single redeeming thing about this album and the only musical part worth a damn is just the mission impossible theme.

I really was quite “eh” on this

Way over the top earnest. Also, fuck Win Butler.

It was a total meh

Man this really close some idols liked Too but not get a chance like thjs

This was just plain stunning

I really dug this, could live without the horns though.

I only listened to some. His phrasing is really amazing, like what you’d hope a solo instrument would shape melodies like. Hard for me to really listen to though, it’s a style that’s such a part of the fabric of older moves and films that I struggle to separate it from just being “setting”

Some great songs, but I really don’t love a greatest hits album and there isn’t a lot of variation here

Van Morrison is a shitty person, but this is an amazing album that feels completely timeless

Great background music and very rewarding layering as long as you don’t actually read the lyrics

Great debut, fucking Freebird first time out? Cmon.

Sounds like shit a Lars can’t drum, but the volume of great riffs is absurd. Everything is maybe 20% longer than it needs to be though

I guess some of it was "funny", but not funny ha-ha. Frank Zappa seems like a dick.

One of my favorite jazz albums

I had to bail on this one, it was just nails on the chalkboard

I feel like I remember liking this more. It’s not that I dislike it, just that it doesn’t draw me like I remember it doing.

Same with everything Jack White touches, this suffers from him thinking he’s so clever and that being the focus.

This is music for divorced dads who want to get back with their ex but don’t really care about custody.

Honestly, just really well written songs executed really well

A classic

Just a powerhouse beginning to end

On paper, not my jam but this is such a great distillation of mid-aughts indie

The chorus of American Pie was the only thing I enjoyed about this. Just a bad Dylan impression someone who didn’t understand what made Dylan special

Lots of this album has me thinking “why haven’t I heard this before?!” And other parts were that very British style of song that feels like a kids show tune.

Man it must have been totally mind blowing to hear this when it first came out

One of my favorite country albums. Great songwriting and storytelling and delivery to match

It’s kind of wild to revisit this, everything about Kanye is already kind of there, we just didn’t notice it. Terrible misogynistic rhymes and homophobic jokes and lame sex puns, a refusal to take responsibility, etc. but mostly it’s realllllly HS. The music is insanely good though, but the lyrics aren’t and it goes on forever.

Everything is so distilled down to the essential notes that there really isn’t a misplaced moment her

Great lyrics, but man are the synths a bit much

Wild listening to this back to back with I’m Your Man. I’m giving this a 5, but only because I’d probably flip the ratings. Or maybe both are 5’s? Just amazing range writing

I couldn’t stick with it. I just don’t like this very specific brand of overproduced and hyper-cleaned pop

There were some interesting sounds and production choices, none of them were the words or vocals though.

I listened to both mixes and they both sounded like shit but this album transcends them

Love the early 90s hip hope. Thought this would be cheesier, was pleasantly surprised

Amazingly well written and performed.

It was fine, felt like forgettable tracks on a better album. Really found the acoustic tracks interesting though

I thought I would find this more interesting

Man, I missed out not listening to anything but the single when it came out. Catchy, abrasive, pretty, this was great.

It was not as memorable as I expected, with a few exceptions it was relatively interchangeable with a lot from that era

There were one or two songs that really stood out, but mostly this was generic indie.

Riffs.l for days, this thing is a beast

I don’t enjoy this vocal style, but this was very engaging

Loved the ambient parts, less so the songs with lyrics

Too new wave for me

This is the epitome of cool, wild that it’s the first Star album on top of everything else

Man. I tried, but this is just not very good video game music

Catchy, but man it’s whiplash going from one song to the next as far as point of view. Theres some wild toxic femininity in here

I think this is one genre that is almost always better with a fully live setting, just feeding off the energy of the crowd.

There are some less than great songs, but the best ones are so truly stunning

Did not think I would like this, was wrong.

Man, there’s some realllllly bad shit on here. Overall kinda cool to hear some punk I hadn’t heard of though

Amazing rhythm section, interesting and varied guitar parts, and then the dumbest shit you’ve heard in your life being yelled by a pervert

It’s funny that country and rap are really two sides of the same coin, where authenticity matters so much but ironically almost everything is written by someone else. Anyhow, fuck the Eagles.

I hate his voice so much

If a mid-level Queen tribute band decided to try an album of Rush-inspired crap, it would be this. More time signature changes than interesting songs.

Easily one of the best rap albums of all time

The Who have one of the greatest bass players, drummers, and (not in my opinion but whatever) singers ever, but are somehow still way less than the sum of their parts. A rock opera about child abuse? Oof. There’s really only 1 or 2 songs that aren’t dependent on the narrative, but this is the rare album where a song is made worse contextually.

I liked this far more than I thought I would

This was not maybe my “kind of jazz”, but I don’t have the vocabulary to articulate the differences well enough. Still clearly brilliantly played and arranged.

All gimmick

So unlike pretty much everything out there.

Never heard this one before. Wild that Bowie did such cool arrangements/production without it being either forced or dated.

If someone put out an album only influenced by Nirvana and a couple Brit-pop bands with hopes of being used in mid-2000s iPod commercials, it’d sure be this

Is Kurt Cobain overrated? Yeah, probably. Is this album somehow underrated now? Also probably.

Catchy, but not a single memorable line. Discount Bowie.

This felt super rushed, not a single memorable line. Still catchy and weird, but definitely felt like there was a deadline.

In terms of historical context, it’s a 5. Amazing arrangement and really wild instrumentation for the time. Personally, I hate the vocals and don’t find the lyrics all that amazing, but I’ll cave and average it out to a 4.

I expected this to be cheesier

Way too long, but pretty good still.

Man, that had some reallllllly weird ideas what’s hottt. I feel like if you asked who the songs were about, he would’ve said “you don’t know them, they go to a different school”

One of the most forgettable things I’ve ever heard

This one came out of nowhere, stunned by it.

Groovy AF

The only nice thing I have to say about John Lennon’s solo career is that he didn’t write “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime”.

This was so scrubbed clean and sanitary you could eat off of it, like a shitty diner’s Formica counter.

You ready for some blasphemy? Some of this stuff is so just kinda boring

I didn’t like this as much as the first one on here by Nick Drake. I think the instrumentation takes away from the fragile magic

I bailed out early. Love me some anti-thatcher class warfare but I just can’t do reggae

Great storytelling, all classics

I had super low expectations for this, but the songwriting won me over. Objectively, they’re worse at every thing The Who do instrumentally but their songs are better.

They always have such original turns of phrase, great to see this here

This was definitely movie background musics it’s fine, but it isn’t much to pay attention to

I really don’t like Jim Morrison

I think it's both trying too hard and a bit lazy at the same time. Didn't click for me.

I really like the Edge, I really dislike Bono. This was inconsistent but pretty good

I love PJ Harvey’s writing, especially how she chooses a very set identity for each album’s sound and instrumentation. I wish this one had more textural variation though, got a little monotonous sounding.

I really struggle with albums that are clearly pretty lyric driven but whose lyrics I can’t understand.

At it's best, some songs are a less-weird Talking Heads (Prairie Rose). Most of the time the sound is just kind of annoying though.

I like The Who live, strips away all the unnecessary studio stuff and the convoluted and self-serious concept garbage. Plus the bass sounds thunderous

A little too long for yacht rock by way of Dire Straits

I had never heard of this band before, cool to I find that on this list outside of jazz and international.

I can’t do his voice for more than 2 songs in a row

Love me some weirdo noise rock

Slaps. But man, this era of production is really flat.

Do Tom Morello's guitar solos annoy me to no end? Yeah. Do I think that the sloganeering here, regardless of whether or not I agree with it, degrades all discourse to the level of bumper stickers? Yeah. Does it sound good as hell? YEAH. This album has 0 nuance and that's kind of part of the appeal.

It’s not an album I go to a lot, but man is it amazing

If it was shorter, it’d be 5

Billy Joel songs all sound like they’re rejected musical numbers for an audience that thinks the Sopranos is an aspirational show

There’s some great imagery and some great lines, but overall I can’t take the meandering structure and the voice for this long.

Some great bass lines and a few interesting guitar parts on songs that I ultimately didn’t like

Turns out I love this kind of music

Banger

One of my favorites. About as perfectly imperfect as you get

I remember this being way more interesting

Extremely raw and unpolished in the best way

I wish I could understand the words. This was weird in a really intway

Really interesting ambient parts, very surprised by this one

It’s amazing that these guys managed to be such snobs and still write such bad lyrics.

This is well written, arranged, and played. For me though, it’s just really twee and I don’t think I’d find myself coming back to it

This didn’t even have the decency to be unpleasant in a fascinating way

This held up really well. It’s too long by maybe 3-4 songs but the sequencing really hides the weaker points and keeps it from being too bleak.

I found this album after I’d found many bands that were influenced by it, subsequently its appeal became mostly academic. It’s too long and the songs are too short and everything is too scattered and too random and too much.

Stunning debut. I’m not the biggest Led Zeppelin fan, but they’re undeniable

I didn't think much of this when it came out, I remember being annoyed by it's name your price option. It does have the main Radiohead issue of having good lines but bad lyrics, otherwise really interesting listen

I'm not the biggest fan of this style of jazz. Dig the organ sound though

At first I thought this was a less annoying Oasis, but it really grew on me

I have Bowie fatigue. Still good, but not better than good

Truly unique and weird

My least favorite of the early Velvet Underground albums.

Genuinely disappointed

No notes

I really want to like Lambchop more than I do.

Easily in my top 25 albums, maybe even top 10

I wish I knew the language, this would be wildly original and interesting in any era but the fact that it's from the 60s is mind-blowing

RIP