1001 Albums Summary

Beautifully produced Lett me roll it to you is McCartney doing Lennon. Lyrics are nonsense. Paul probably needed someone to tell him "no" and John George and Ringo weren't around. Bluebird is probably the best thing on the album.

Sits somewhere between folk and 70s sci fi soundtrack. Like Cat Stevens had a baby with Barbarella

About as good as albums get. Not a weak song on it and not a moment when her level of performance dips below brilliant. What a tragedy we lost her.

Absolute gold. Darlen Love singing Baby Please Come Home is a powerhouse of Yuletide heartbreak. Silent Night, however, where Spector himself gives us a little cosy chat is a step too far into kitsch.

Has all the 90s grunge cliches with Metal cliches thrown in. Huge if you like that sort of thing and seemingly designed for disaffected young men.

Wildly pretentious (thankyou Sting). A film of this being recorded would make Let It Be seem tame. They recorded their tracks in separate rooms "for social reasons". When it's good it's amazing, but there's also a lot of dross. And then there's "Mother", Andy Summers "Lets give Ringo a song" moment. And just to point out, Stewart Copeland goes hard on this.

The body count on this is incredible. Death bed confessions; a brother promising to marry the dying other brother's girl, who turns out to be unfaithful anyway; a seven year old has his heart broken when his girl - his one true love - leaves town; young lovers commit suicide because the girl's parents won't let them marry; a man murders a girl for no discernible reason and throws her body in the river, then regrets it because she was "the gal I loved". I mean... what the actual fark?

If you took a New Wave / Post Punk band like, say Talking Heads or Psychedelic Furs, then sanded off all the edges and applied a high gloss polish, you'd end up with something like The Cars. They're the Post Punk Monkees. Perfectly crafted for FM radio and they're still being played today. If you want depth then head to "More Songs About Buildings and Food". If you want a party soundtrack then this is the one.

Just looking at the names of the songwriters on the album cover and you get a sense of what you're in for. None of them are "less is more" kind of people Ute Lemper has a wonderful voice and The Divine Comedy is an all right band. But the whole thing seems overwrought and a bit self-indulgent. When Joni Mitchell did "Both Sides Now" - a similar "Diva sings with a big backing" collection of songs - she knew how to hold back enough to keep it tasteful. This doesn't hold back at all and the result is overwhelming. And not entirely in a good way.

A lot of testosterone produces thr opposite of complex music. Simple harmonies in 4/4 time and nothing much melodic, but the hook is that it's played fast and loud. They can play, but they fall back on a regular bunch of tricks- the chugging bass, the guitar triplets and so on. They talk about "socially aware lyrics", but then put the vocals so far back in the mix and the singer is so unclear that you wouldn't know. I can see the appeal, but it's not really deep. And it's amusing that this gets labelled "extreme metal" when real extreme music like Throbbing Gristle or John Zorn languishes at the bottom of the rankings.

To most the 60s mean the Beatles, the British Invasion, The Summer of Love, protest songs, Psychedelia, long guitar jams and ever so groovy drum solos. But this stuff - the male crooner - was huge. Sinatra was still having hits; Andy Williams and Tom Jones had their own TV shows; there were Engelbert Humperdink, Matt Monroe, Rod McKuen, Roger Whittaker and lots of others who all rode high on the charts at one time or another. It's all desperately unfashionable today, but the people who say this sounds like unused Bond themes are right - but only because the Bond Producers knew what was huge and used it because people liked it. Scott Walker is a bit different from the others. First, he was a big fan of Jaques Brel, a man who never met a simile he didn't like. Brel wrote songs that make Jimmy Webb and Jim Steinman seem like models of restraint. Second, he wrote his own songs that were heavily influenced - oh all right, copies - of Brel. Only he was not quite as good at it as Brel and songs like "Plastic Palace People" are so over written as to be unbelievable. As an artefact of its time and of a forgotten corner of sixties music it's valuable. 4 Stars. But as a listening pleasure - not really. 2 stars.

Skates close to pastiche, while remaining being something new. A touch of Dylan, some Aladdin Sane, some country music flourishes, some roots and blues, a genuine R&B cover, maybe some Tom Waits, some big riffs, all played by a cracking band who steam along like a runaway train. The lyrics contain some fairly lacerating stuff, directed against others (especially women) and particularly against himself. How much off this is due to his recent divorce is anyone's guess, but clearly it's not an album filled with happiness.

If you look up "awesome" in a dictionary there's a picture of this album. These guys are the band the Sex Pistols wanted to be - literally so, since The Saints had a record deal and the Pistols didn't. This is purest punk. The sneering snarl of Chris Bailey's vocals; the power of Ed Kuepper's guitar riffing; the solid wall of the drum and bass driving everything on. It's like the fiercest of angry animals coming at you. And they add a horn section. At the time that horn section caused some angst because "real punks don't use horns". The Saints, who WERE real punks (and Australian punks at that) just told them to stick their heads up a dead bear's bum and did it anyway. This is real punk and if you've grown up with bands who claim to be punk rockers (looking at you Blink-182) then listen and learn. Also, their first album - (I'm) Stranded -goes even harder.

On the first track they come on like Neil Young's noisier cousin, all discordant screaming and weird anger. Then they settle down into the sort of thing punk psychobilly cowboys might line dance to. The album is peppered with instrumentals, a bit of gospel, some Nashville, some flat out rock. It's all over the place like a madwoman's undies and exactly how well known they'd be if Kurt Cobain hadn't announced them on the Unplugged album is up for discussion, but they're kind of fascinating in a strange "can't look away" kind of manner

One of the foundational documents of Hip Hop and the first Hip Hop album to enter the mainstream The rapping is razor sharp and the rhymes are brilliant. Tricky is the absolute, indispensable masterpiece, but there is a flow of bangers, one after the other. Okay, Dumb Girl hasn't aged well and Walk This Way, while great fun, is cheesier than Nonna's lasagne, but these two aside, you'd be hard to find a dud track on the album. Essential

Funk so funky you could eat it with a spoon. A beautiful voice so charged with feeling. But the lyrics. From the man who wrote "People Get Ready" and "Move on Up" we get things like: Can't be no fun To be shot with a hand gun Or When cupboards are bare Our love we can share Truth is not the whole question What is the answer you hide? Or Every time we kiss It's such a pleasant taste Or this pearler Our love is your confession That we're in love. It's just not very good. 4 for the music 1 for the songs

So it comes with a Public Service Announcement at the beginning saying Children Should Not Listen and Don't Try This at Home and proceeds to 90 minutes of songs that are so extreme in their homophobia, misogyny, social dislocation and violence that toy wonder what exactly was the intention of it all. Is it some sort of Randy Newman satirical character study? Is it meant to be taken seriously? (A lot did) Is it a jet black humour performance in the vein of The Naked Lunch? Whatever it is, it's hardly the most mature album ever, and some of the songs sound like the demo versions of songs from a better album. Another reviewer here said that it was like being trapped in a room with a 13 year old obnoxious brat and they're not wrong.

Police Albums are weird beasts. All of them have one or two songs that are so well known that they're part of the DNA of popular culture. Outlandos D'Amour has Roxanne and So Lonely Zenyatta Mondatta has Don't Stand So Close to Me and Do Do Do Do Da Da Da Da Ghost in the Machine has Every Little Thing And of course Synchronicity has Every Breathe You Take. But once you get past the songs everyone knows you get songs that no-one ever thinks about. When was the last time you heard Peanuts or Born in the 50s or Man in a Suitcase or Darkness or Tea in the Sahara? Regatta de Blanc is the same. Any album with Walking on the Moon and Message in a Bottle can't be all bad and Deathwish, Bring on the Night and The Bed's Too Big Without You aren't far behind. But then you've got things like a strange semi instrumental, the bizarre On Any Other Day, a bit of wannabe punk and whatever Does Everyone Stare is. The musicianship is outstanding. Andy Summers knows no bounds in inventing guitar sounds and Stewart Copeland pounds the drums like a man possessed. Sting is... well... Sting and I'll leave it up to you to decide for yourself. When it's good it's brilliant and it's brilliant for four or five tracks. But there are eleven tracks on the album

Probably could have been recorded at no other time than the 80s. Production that glows, it's so highly polished. Linn drums and synth along with a male voice that's filled with emotion to the point of melodrama. On the surface these are bangers. Shout is a magnificent opener and there are tracks that sound amazing - Head Over Heels and Everybody Wants to Rule the World in particular. The problem is, once you get past the surface, they're not really a lot of fun. Deadly serious young men talking about pop psychology and the troubles of the world. And as deadly serious young men do they expect to be taken seriously, without a whiff of irony or humour. Best enjoyed as a sort of darker Human League and don't think about it too much.

This seems to sit somewhere between one of Alan Lomax's Smithsonian field recordings and the Velvet Undeground's White Light / White Heat. It seems to have been recorded in a barn with the artists standing around a single microphone. If you're looking for slick, shining, perfectly produced, Brian Eno sound then go somewhere else immediately. Guitars scream, voices howl, drums thunder. It's all just a bit glorious. Exactly what those voices are howling ABOUT is open to discussion, but in this sort of thing it's the thought that counts. 40 minutes of pleasure.

People saying that the Eurhythmics sound "so 80s" are kind of missing the point that not only did they dominate the 80s with single after single, but the dark, sequenced bass lines; the programmed drum machines; the obsessional lyrics; the hi-gloss production all set the template for a whole genre of 80s pop. The two singles - Love is a Strange and Sweet Dreams Are Made of This - are so strong that they carry the rest of the songs which are, let's be honest, not nearly as good. Several aren't so much songs as extended jams, but with the power of Lennox's voice and the invention of Stewart's production they just about get away with it. Essential for an understanding of 80s pop.

When this came out in the UK in 78, Disco was at its peak with the release of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, ABBA were dominating the charts and first wave punk was in full cry. So imagine having the confidence to release this as your debut album. A collection of fairly wordy lyrics with a bit of a Dylan edge to them, set to spare and restrained backing with a guitarist whose finger picking style is completely different from anything else on the scene. The centrepiece is, of course, Sultans of Swing, but every song on the album is a winner. Knopfler is at odds with the power chords and jangle of much of late 70s guitar. His playing is clear and spare with not too many notes and every note in the right place. He doesn't seem to be doing much, but that's the beauty of it. He makes it seem simple. Dire Straits would go on to be the biggest band in the world and never really deviated from the template of this album.

If ever there was a recording of its time and place this is it. Summer of Love, west coast California. There's Vietnam, Drugs, Psychedelia, Tribal Love, Visions, Aliens, All of us Coming Together and all the hippy accoutrements. It's sung in the sort of lush vocal harmonies that were big at the time (see also The Mammas and The Pappas and The 5th Dimension) and combines folk, jazz, rock and pop and drenches it all in more phasing and flanging and production tricks than seems possible. Imagine "Revolver" but dial it up to 11. It's all very trippy and of the moment, but I think its moment us well past. Also: "I'm coming down off amphetamine I'm in jail coz I killed a queen." Really??

I have never felt so out of place as I did listening to this. I am completely not the audience for this. I can appreciate it as an album. But I just don't connect with it

Just when you thought the 60s couldn't get more self indulgent along comes Love with what appears to be a 17 minute song about oral sex. The rest, which is, for a mercy, a further 19 minutes, is full of mind expanding poetry and music that goes from flute driven folk to garage grunge. Not very good now and I suspect not very good back in the day.

We hardly need reminding that when this came out it was "the new Rolling Stones", "the new Velvet Underground" and a revolutionary new direction in rock and roll. Of course it's nothing of the sort. It's a cool pop album that's recorded like a throwback to the sixties with a set of songs that, to be honest, all start to sound a bit the same after a while. There are certainly worse ways to spend 40 minutes, but it's not going to change your life.

If ever there was an album that could be described as "awesome in parts" this is it. The band is virtuosic tight, inventive and pretty much unlike anything else. Fripp's guitar playing is impeccable. 21st Century Schizoid Man is astonishing. Epitaph and the title track are equally brilliant. But two problems exist. One is the lyrics. The band had a member whose sole job was to write the words to the songs. And what a set of self consciousnessly arty, pretentious nonsense they are. YOU HAD ONE JOB!!! (Sinfield went on to write lyrics for Emerson Lake and Palmer and didn't get any better.) And then there's the.band's fixation on pastoral, fey, mellotron love ins that, at the time, probably seemed like the music of tomorrow but now seem like unlistenable excess. So 5/5 when they're good. 2/5 when they're being "artistes".

After listening to The Notorious Byrd Brothers last week I was not excited to listen to this. Instead I was charmed from the first notes of Dylan's You Ain't Going Nowhere and held to the end. Without an ounce of insincerity, The Byrds go to church on I am a Pilgrim and The Christian Life, suffer heartbreak, get nostalgic, go to jail and, on One Hundred Years from Now, even manage to sound like The Byrds. Of course the Rock and Roll people didn't like it (Too Country!) and Nashville hated it (Hippies making fun of us) but at this distance it's clear that it's an utterly charming piece of Americana.

The highest selling jazz album of all time, so pretty much bullet proof as far as criticism is concerned. Whether it actually is a jazz album is up for discussion. Some people say that its complete lack of jazz rhythm, jazz harmony or ... you know ... jazz kind of rule it out. If a solid hour of improvised solo piano in a kind of "70s modern" style sounds like something you'd run a mile from, then it probably is. But you might find that on another day, in another mood, at another time this is the most sublime thing you've ever heard and might just change your life.

I was told, "It sounds like the cover looks" and it's true. The first thing you notice are the washes and waved of noise that seem to cover everything. But underneath those clouds of sound is a solid sense of melody supported by some great harmony choices. The vocals are set way back in the mix but since the lyrics seem unimportant anyway, seemingly being there to add to the texture, this doesn't matter. Comparison with Sonic Youth or Jesus and Mary Chain or even White Light/White Heat era Velvet Underground seems appropriate, but this is something lusher and richer. Call it shoegaze if you want, but what wonderful shoes.

If you gave up on U2 because you found them too humble and self-deprecating, then this is the album for you! Radiohead wannabes who seem to have genetically engineered VERY IMPORTANT anthemic songs for 90,000 people to sing along with at Wembley. Not a single spark of life or energy anywhere, the songs just lie there, waiting to be played under the credits of a b-grade American police procedural. Coldplay rode the inoffensive train straight down the middle of the road to become, for one brief shining plastic moment, the biggest band in the world, so clearly they knew what they were doing. But there's no excuse for it.

Every boy who has ever picked up a guitar and sang about his girl dumping him in the last 60 years has owed something to The Everlys and the template they laid down. It's a bit country, it's a bit rock and roll, a bit Johnny Cash, a bit Elvis. They harmonise like angels about teen heartbreak and adolescent lust. These boys are horny! Girls are made for lovin' (apparently), but most of them break your heart and make you their clown. You can imagine this playing on the jukebox in the corner of a diner in a David Lynch movie. Not as angst driven as someone like Roy Orbison, but still filled with drama. Cathy's Clown is the best known song here, but there's the whitest version known to man of Little Richard's Lucille and Love Hurts, later recorded by a string of others. The whole thing is over and done with in less than half an hour and it's pleasant enough.

Hits the sweet spot between "just another rockband" and "avante garde tosser" Full of experimental moments that don't overwhelm the basic listenability of the music. There is something genuinely magnificent about it.

I have to admit that Arcade Fire are a band whose name I recognise, but whose music has passed me by. Having listened to this I see no reason to alter that situation. I'm sure this all sounded original and exciting in 2010, especially if you hadn't listened to a lot of older, better bands. The Cars, Radiohead, Exile on Main Street era Stones, U2, Bjork all put in an appearance. But I was surprised at how often it reminder me of Neil Young. And if I want to listen to a second rate Neil Young album, well, Neil has recorded several already.

There was a time when Madonna was of universal significance, where everyone knew her, listened to her, bought her records. Even your Nanna knew "Material Girl" In more recent years, everyone still knows her, but less as an artist and more as a punchline. This album comes about half way between these two extremes. She was still selling records, still getting critical praise, but the days when a new Madonna Video was an event were long behind her. She was coming off the success of "Ray of Light" and seemingly could do no wrong. But Music is nowhere near as strong as that album. Ray of Light had similar studio production antics, but had them applied to actual songs, with Verses, Choruses and Bridges. The tracks on Music don't seem like songs. They're more like beats with words over the top. I imagine that Music is quite the influential album. If Ray of Light was a bit like Madonna catching up with what was happening at the time. Bjork had released Homogenic, Kylie Minogue had released Impossible Princess, Missy Elliot had released Super Duper Fly, all highly produced electronica. But Music was Madonna pushing the things she tried on Ray of Light further into the future. It's not as strong as Ray of Light, but it's probably more significant.

Makes you appreciate how important Kurt Cobain was to Nirvana as a creative force. This is perfectly servicable, if fairly generic, 90s grunge. But it seem to be to Nevermind or In Utero what one of Ringo or George's solo albums was to Revolver.

Minimalist Avant folk pop not quite ambient music from another world. Utterly charming and never quite heading in the direction you expect, this is full of beautiful surprises.

Like the best night you ever had at a pub. There's rowdy dance music, a song that'll break your heart, some politics, someone is reciting poetry and everyone is as happy and full of the joys of life as is possible. And then, when things can't get better, someone puts on Fairytale of New York and it DOES get better. And maybe it does outstay its welcome and maybe Shane McGowan's voice makes Joe Strummer sound like Doris Day, but this is obviously a master work.