1001 Albums Summary

It was not without its charms.

The soundtrack to every Scorsese movie.

Whoa, that was awesome. Drum solo on the last song kinda went on and on.

Love Dolly but the music's just not my taste. 4 stars because Dolly rules.

When I was in college I fucking hated Depeche Mode. I was dumb then.

Holy shit, this album rules. I'm 25 again - how did I miss this when it came out?

In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Definitely in the "I appreciate this, but don't love it" category of Radiohead albums.

Partly unimpeachably incredible, partly weirdly overcome with ennui. Overall, excellent.

I think I'm getting old. This sounded exactly like a combination of Dirty Projectors and Real Estate (so much so that, when the album ended, it switched to a Real Estate song and I didn't notice), but I'm sure people my age in 1967 probably said the Kinks sounded exactly like a combination of the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Anyway, I'm giving it 3 stars, but it's very possible it's way better than that.

Anything involving Nile Rodgers gets a minimum 4 stars.

I had to give it 5 stars or Danny will beat me up.

Wow, I liked this way more than I thought I would. Really, this is the kind of experience that justifies this entire exercise -- there is a 0% chance I would have listened to this album otherwise, and I really liked it (this is the 4th or 5th time this has happened now, out of like 15 albums total).

The sensation of being slapped in the face by a freezing cold industrial hose converted to music. I kinda liked it.

I feel the same way about this XTC album as I feel about every XTC song I've ever heard - ANTSA(XTC).

Incredible album - just great stuff. I guess Richard Wagner made some pretty good music too -- here, have this 1, Nazi.

Hotel California (the song) is great - 5/5, no notes. Hotel California (the album) is ass - almost incredibly bad other than Hotel California (the song). Dirk Diggler-Chest Rockwell songwriting level awful; just hideous. 2 stars, up from 1 attributable solely to (1) Hotel California (the song), and (2) the fact that I'm generally inclined to take it easy and, today in particular have a peaceful easy feeling.

One man enter, one man with a slight headache leave.

All time classic that makes me want to take up smoking again.

Really liked this - kinda like the Sex Pistols but if you replaced 50% of the anger with anxiety.

Probably a personal failing on my part that I just can't seem to manage to like anything by Leonard Cohen. Weird because I love Tom Waits and like Nick Cave. Oh well.

What a great and unexpected surprise inclusion on this list; I had never heard of this, but it was amazing.

Man, I really liked this and did not expect to - catchy, sad-dad music. Another experience that really justifies participating in this.

I love Beach House - just beautiful music. This isn't my favorite album of theirs (that would be Depression Cherry), but it's still awesome.

A stone cold classic - not much else to say, really.

One of my all time favorites. Really listening to it this time ... the lyrics of the title song in particular are just unreal -- "can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail"; devastating.

Bloody Well Right is fun. Everything else is awful - goopy, overly-dramatic, 70's Air Supply crap.

I get why people would like it, but not my thing.

5 is not enough stars. This might actually be the best 90's grunge album -- Obviously Nevermind is incredible, but this is so underplayed by comparison ... Weird coincidence how nearly all my favorite albums happened to come out when I was in my 20's.

First of all, Season of the Witch rocks - comes close to redeeming the whole album. Second, that sound ... that goddamn sound in Sunshine Superman is the most annoying sound in the history of popular music. Checking online, it sounds like it might be Jimmy Page doing ... something with his guitar -- Wikipedia refers to it as "employing an innovative use of the volume control on his guitar for the repeating figure". I guess that's one way to describe it - another would be "interminable" or "for the love of God make it stop". Anyway, the rest of the album is inoffensive Hippie stuff, kinda meh. 3 stars for Season of the Witch.

This was wonderful. Janis Joplin has always kind of existed in the background for me -- a sad, tragic heroine of the hippie era whose music was ubiquitous but never really worth listening to; she was part of someone else's generational experience, certainly not mine. Actually listening to her now ... not only is she incredible, but her backing band is awesome. I was expecting to be bored and I was ... not that.

I wish I was cool enough to love this. As it is, I'm only cool enough to like it.

Take on Me is one of the best songs of the 80's. The Sun Always Shines on TV is the good kind of indulgent, navel-gazing sappiness. Everything else could be in the soundtrack of any John Hughes movie. Warning: May cause feathering of hair.

Dollar Store ripoff of Patsy Cline singing cutesy songs about spousal abuse and alcoholism. Hard pass.