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.

Hey, it's Steely Dan! Actually thought I would like this way more than I did -- other than My Old School, it's just kinda ... eh?

Another album I would never have heard of, let alone listened to, and absolutely loved.

Without its charms it was not.

This was ... good? Did not expect that - do I now have to change my lifestyle, drink different beer, get new friends, etc.?

This was much better than I expected - I expected edgeless, soft hippy-dippy mush, and it really wasn't. Not something I'll likely seek out again, but was definitely worth a listen.

Not bad, not really good, just kinda there.

Yeah, this is the best Hendrix album. A complete mess of a masterpiece.

Complicated relationship with this one. Came out my freshman year of college, and I immediately dismissed it as U2’s sellout album. I grew to like it more and more over the years, and really listening to it again now … I’m right back to where I was in 1987. This was the album where the best band became the biggest band.

I'm aligned with the consensus on this one - 1 very good song (Breakdown), one all-time classic and the rest fine but forgettable. The line between 3 and 4 stars for me is whether you think American Girl is just a masterpiece vs. a generational anthem. I'm going generational anthem.

My favorite band from my 20's even though I only really love their first album (Gish) and half-like their second (Siamese Dream). I've probably heard 30% of this one before now ... really liked it. I sort of have to give it 5 stars but get why people would not.

Feels a lot more recent than 1973 - really liked it. In Every Dream House is one of a kind.

Had never heard of these guys, liked them a lot. Busy day so I had them on in the background a bit.

Frank Zappa seems more like a fictional character than an actual person who once actually existed at this point. Nice to listen to this to remember what the fuss was about.

Another guy I'd never heard of (I like some of his dad's stuff), and really loved. Very easy listening, but I'm of that age, I guess.

My great grandmother who came over in 1912 fleeing the Tsar gave me two bits of information before she died when I was 8: (1) always be a good boy and try hard in school, and (2) AmeriKKa's Most Wanted fuckin' rips.

Woof, this sucked. The stuff that may have once been good (or at least tolerable) is absurdly overplayed and the rest is nearly unlistenable - leaden, plodding, tedious crap.

It would be hard to find a more generic example of forgettable 80's music if you tried. No idea what this album is doing on this list -- The The has much better stuff.

Ok, I liked this way more than I thought I would, having heard other stuff by The Fall and just not really having gotten it. This was much more straightforward punk (I guess technically "post-punk" but I have no idea what that means) than the other albums, and I wonder now whether if I'd heard this first I would have liked those better. Probably.

I didn't like this much, so it's not getting a good review. Interesting that this predates Graceland, though.

Admired it more than loved it.

k.d. lang led the league in People I'd Heard of a Ton But Had Never Actually Heard until now. This was awesome - Patsy Cline brought to the modern era.

Suspicious Minds might be the best song of all time, and everything else is ... I mean it's Elvis.

Needs to be heard loud.

I think it's kind of awesome that, in addition to all-time classic albums, indisputably important albums and just really interesting albums, every so often we get an album that they guy who did this list just happened to really like at some point. No snark - it's actually fun to get one of these.

Cool album - felt like being in a dance club in the 1990's ... or rather what I assume being in a dance club in the 1990's would have felt like.

Love me some Elliott Smith, but (limited "but") (a) I've never listened to a full album of his at one time and it's a bit much, and (b) not sure this is his best album. Easy Way Out is an all-time though - some of the meanest lyrics this side of Dylan at his nastiest.

Ugh, after loving "Blue", I really expected to at least really like this one. Instead, it's headache-inducing mushy goop - "Help Me" in particular is nails on blackboard. The second star is for Blue again.

Liked this a bit more than I was expecting to. I'm not sure it's an album I had to listen to before I died (especially 90 minutes worth of it), but it was fine, bordering on good-ish. I (embarrassingly) have a soft spot for the New York song - probably (definitely) something to do with when it was released.

This was really awesome and fun. I suspect I will never listen to it again, but it was a great, unique listening experience.

That absolutely ruled. Had never heard of this guy (these guys?), this album or any song on it before - complete blank heading in, and was not optimistic based on the last few of these along these lines. Absolutely blown away.

I started listening to this when It came out in 1972 and just finished.

Love, love, love this album.

Really liked it, but didn't love it. The obvious hits are incredible and fun to hear again despite having heard them roughly 1,000 times. The others are fun - much more 80's-ish than I was expecting, though I'm not sure why I wouldn't have been expecting that.

So I would probably give a 7-second recording of Talking Heads walking into a studio and accidentally knocking over a mic stand 5 stars, but this really merits it. Lots of lists about the best first track or best first two or three tracks of an album -- you never really see any about the last song or two. Not sure you're ever going to find two better than Psycho Killer and Pulled Up.

Beautiful stuff - perfect for a Sunday morning, which is when I got this one.

I've tried. I've tried to like Oasis. I DO really like one Oasis song (Don't Look Back in Anger). It seems like I should like Oasis. People who like Oasis like the same music I like. People who don't like Oasis don't like the music I don't like. I don't like Oasis.

Odd parallel to The Joshua Tree with this one - hated it in college, grew to like it more and more over the years and now ... sorta see what I was thinking in college. It's great but really, really whiny.

Everything sung by Neil Young gets a 5, everything sung by Stephen Stills gets a 2, rounding up because I really love "Broken Arrow" for reasons I find hard to explain.

I absolutely love this, and really everything by YYYs.

I had to give this 5 stars or Danny AND Andy would beat me up.

This album was not a good album. I'm clearly missing something with these guys - they seem to appear in lists like these and I've tried them before and ... I'm not even close to getting it.

This is the kind of album that feels like it was recorded personally for me. Just loved it.

Never have gotten this - just not my thing I guess. Actually liked the unfamiliar stuff a good deal more than the relatively well known ones.

I liked the part with the horns.

Reminded me of Leonard Cohen. I don't like him either.

Good background music for work.

Two jazz albums in a row - funny. I liked this one much more. Looks like I prefer the bolder variety. This reminded me of Whiplash.

Listened to it 3 straight times - could've listened to it 3 more. Banger top to bottom.

What if Spinal Tap was not funny.

I'm not sure what the term "This Is My Jam" is supposed to mean exactly, but I'm pretty sure this is that for me.

Pleasant background music. Kinda liked it.

Maybe not the best album on here, but likely the easiest 5-star review for me. Gut punch after gut punch. Weird but very apt coincidence that I get this 2 days after Live Through This.

I liked this! And no one is more surprised than me based on others' reviews and the fact that this is never going to be my favorite type of music. Catchy and fun.

The hits are unimpeachable, but I've heard them so many times ... and the non-hits were nothing special. 4 stars because the highs are so high.

I just want to be the only person who gives this album a 3.

Hard to separate this from the Whole Frank Sinatra Thing, but somehow managed. For better or worse, he really is the absolute best of this whole genre - 5 stars for the music.

TIL there are limits to how much Britpop I can take. Too Oasisy, not Blurry enough. I don't even much like that one damn song from Clueless.

Probably expected to like this a bit more ... I mean it's great and all, but was not blown away (Ziggy is way, way better). Sort of parallel to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers for me -- two great songs, one an all-time banger (Panic in Detroit / American Girl), the other lesser but also really, really good (Jean Genie / Breakdown), everything else very listenable but not at that level.

I guess I'm now a country fan ... or more likely, a fan of someone with pipes like these; man what a voice. Either way, I apparently need to purchase some fringe.

This was so much better than I remembered it being.

Another 2 Good Songs And The Rest Fine album (Tom Petty, Aladdin Sayne). This one gets 3 stars rather than 4 because I am fucking sick to death of Tiny Dancer - take it up with Cameron Crowe, Elton.

They didn't even ask if I could touch their monkey.

Charms, not without, etc.

Just not my thing.

I love this album - completely bizarre, hysterically (and stupidly) funny, one-of-a-kind.

Man do I love this album - if I could give more than 5 stars, I would.

So this is why I'm here - never heard of these guys, never heard anything like this, and it's just completely fun and awesome. I estimate that it's improved by approximately 14% by virtue of the fact that I have no idea what anyone is saying.

Everything's awesome except the fucking lyrics (literally).

109 albums in and this is, by far, the worst of the lot so far. Painful.

This album doesn't have any of my, like, top 5 songs by these guys, but it's still awesome, if a bit repetitive.

Like getting a can of cheap beer poured over your head (complimentary). Loses a little steam after the first 2 songs (LaGrange is unimpeachable, but I've heard it sooo many times).

This was just plain great - the weird, crazy energy of Rock Lobster over an entire album.

I guess this is hugely influential/important (Apple Music compares it to Rubber Soul, uh, ok?), and I get it based on its release year, but it just seems kinda average-ish to me. Certainly not bad.

This was very good, but I guess I like old bloated Elvis more than young spry Elvis.

My kind of mess.

Like getting yelled at by a particularly articulate, poetic drunk for 45 minutes (complimentary).

Band seems weirdly mismatched to the type of music they're playing - they're too polished and not pissed off enough to be playing punk. The best parts of the album (e.g., Smash it Up Part 1) are the parts that are not punk. Still good - just off.

Amazingly beautiful - a combination of Loveless (MBV) and Beach House's best music, and earlier than either. Fotzpoletic is an all-timer - listened to it 4 times today.

It's really too bad that this gets hijacked by Clapton's Whole Thing because it's actually a pretty good (unexpectedly so) good album.

Liked this but it's kinda sleepy. I like other stuff I've heard from her a bit more.

2 ZZ Top albums in 10 days ... this one's not as good as the other one. The algorithm or vagaries of fate (or whatever) did this album no favors - this would likely be a 3 but for the irritation at seeing this so close to the other one.

Almost forgot how much I love these guys. Can vividly remember listening to Summertime Blues off this one on cassette on my crappy old boombox when I was like 11. Banger then, banger now.

I think you will find, my dear Watson, that the solution to this mystery lies in the first syllable of the band’s name.

Guess Paul was really going through it during this one - in the middle of something he didn't really understand, one might say. Anyway, it's great - you're not supposed to bat 1.000 when you're depressed, but the highs (or lows) are quite high (or low).

Forgot how awesome this was - so many great songs and it seems like you never hear any of them anymore. Among the greatest of musical mysteries: The song "Ironic" is itself a nearly ideal example of irony in that not one of the examples of "irony" in the song is actually ironic (they're all just coincidences and/or things that would really suck), which is the opposite of what one would expect in a song that purports to be about irony. The question/mystery is whether Alanis was aware of this when she wrote it, which would give the song an extra really fun meta-layer. I'm going with yes.

Nasty, brutish and short (complimentary)

Another completely unexpected awesome album - I'm not sure what I'm supposed to wear to a rave, but I guess I need to buy whatever it is.

Even though none of these songs are actually in Grand Theft Auto Vice City, all of these songs are in Grand Theft Auto Vice City.

Music is great, lyrics so whiny ... what do I do with this?

Papa Was a Rolling Stone takes up 1/3 of the album, which makes this exactly 1/3 of an awesome album.

This was way better than I was expecting - cool, moody, atmospheric stuff; really enjoyed it.

In a billion years, I never would have bet that a Pixies album would be this meh.

Nope.

He’s growing on me.

Well, I had that damn Throbbing Gristle album a couple of days ago, so I guess this is pretty ho-hum by comparison. I could see myself getting used to this (and maybe even liking it) if I listened to it a few more times.

I would see the movie that includes these songs like 5 times in the theater.

Julie liked it.

When I'm done working, I'm going to spend all my time at a bar that plays nothing but this album over and over and over again.

Personal quirk, maybe, but I just don't like the sound of the sitar. I also can't stand Light My Fire. Makes this one a bit of a challenge.

This was a lot better than I thought it would be (the fact that it's still just a 3 tells you all you need to know about how good I thought it would be). This will never be my thing, but I sort of get it.

This was really cool - yet another one that I would never have had a chance to hear but for this project. Had it on in the background during work and, weirdly, was absolutely awesome for that purpose.

Had only heard the famous song off this one before - the whole album is just as great. Listened 3 times, could have done more.

I gave 5 stars to Never Mind the Bollocks a couple weeks ago too, but the Clash are so, so much better ... There's a performative, contemptuous quality to the Pistols that the Clash replace with furious integrity. It's the difference between someone sneering at me and scowling at the way things be. Also they're, like, just way, way better at the whole making of music thing, which helps.

Example 5,357,540,641 of why you should never break up the damn band.

It had been so long since I be illin' I think I strained something.

Second Chemical Brothers album in a week and, instead of being sick of them, I like them more every time I listen.

Madonna has the Jack Nicholson problem. Anything Jack Nicholson appears in is overwhelmed by a voice in the back of your head constantly saying "that's Jack Nicholson" which drags along every other movie he's ever been in, so it's nearly impossible to evaluate it on its own merits. You're not watching a movie or a Jack Nicholson performance, you're watching EVERY movie Jack Nicholson has been in and EVERY Jack Nicholson performance at once, and Jack Nicholson's character in whatever the movie is is just Jack Nicholson. Same thing with Madonna - I can't listen to this without thinking "this is Madonna" every second of every song, and simultaneously hearing in the back of my mind every other Madonna song I've heard since the beginning of her career (much of which I really like!). I can't separate the songs from the performer and the performer has a whole overlay that gets in the way of my ability to evaluate the songs. In short, I might have liked this as an album made by anyone other than Madonna, but adding in the whole Madonna thing, I thought it kinda sucked.

Without. Not. Charms. Etc.

Anything involving Nile Rodgers gets at least 4 stars.

So, my theory is this: This is not the best Beatles album (though it's damn good), but it's in the running for most important Beatles album. Why? Because this is when they figured out they could do pretty much anything everyone else was doing better than everyone else, which got them confident enough to start to create their own thing (initially, the "clever Beatles", as George called them, then obviously way beyond). You don't start out with Revolver -- Picasso didn't start out painting people with guitars for faces either.

Remains not an easy listen (frankly, a lot of the songs are pretty much indistinguishable, imo), but there is some great stuff and the sheer guts it took to release something like this when he did is so admirable.

Definitely a soft spot for this one - REM is the ultimate mid/late 80's college band, and this one came out early in my sophomore year. It was totally ubiquitous (back in the days when there was a monoculture) -- everyone loved it, even annoying, "integrity" obsessed contrarians like me. Listening again now ... we were all absolutely right, this album rules.

More performance art/weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird. Not intended for me, obviously, which is fine.

Not as good as I remembered it being ... probably because I haven't heard the full album since I was about 14, when my Doors fandom pretty much peaked.

The Drowners is awesome, everything else was fine. Any inclination I may have had to give a higher rating was overcome by the inclusion of a song called "Animal Nitrate".

These albums made by a legend who knew this would be his/her/their last definitely hit extra hard.

It is possible that I (or anyone) have never been more wrong about a band than I was about these guys when I was in college. This album is incredible - 4 all timers (World in My Eyes and Policy of Truth are, I think, even better than Personal Jesus and Enjoy the Silence) and everything else is great.

When people say they hate 60's music, this is what they mean.

So mellow I nearly lapsed into incontinence.

First time through: Hey, this isn't too bad - better than I thought, I can see what Cobain saw in these guys. Second time through: Wait, this is even better than I thought - the instrumental songs not filler at all, they might be the best songs on the album. Third time through: This is the greatest album I have ever heard, I am naming all of my children "Meat Puppets".

Definitely was not expecting to like this nearly as much as I did.

I have a visceral reaction to preening hair metal from this era - I feel exactly the same way about Aerosmith. Anyway, this was painfully bad.

This will never be my favorite kind of music, but I have a soft spot for this one.

In which my old, pasty ass falls in love with a new band.

No one has ever been more vindicated about everything than Sinead O'Conor. Anyway, this album rules.

Liked this quite a bit, but wasn't totally blown away.

Had never heard of these guys - fun, cool album.

These guys sound exactly like the Undertones. I like them too.

An album that just about everyone likes and is still somehow underrated. Not one bad song here - really, not even one "meh" song - and two or three all-timers.

Another otherwise great album undermined by seriously gross lyrics.

Didn't like this nearly as much as their other album on this list - all the cool, edgy cinematic stuff replaced by pale, watery limpness. Still sort of pleasant, just very inessential.

So, this was quite the rambling mess of an album, huh? Almost like an insanely super-talented guy had been somehow constrained for several years and this just, like, all gushed out at once as soon as the constraint was removed. Anyway, there's some quote by some director that said something like the definition of a great movie is three great scenes and no bad ones. Well, there are certainly no bad songs here -- not even close -- and there are at least 4 unimpeachably great ones (my secret favorite is Run of the Mill), so it's an easy 5 stars.

At the risk of losing my Dude card, I just remain completely burned out on CCR - loved them like 35 years ago, got sick of them quickly and just never got it back. At least I also hate the fuckin' Eagles, man.

Not a ton to say about one of the best albums of all time, other than that it's pretty obvious why it's one of the best albums of all time. Listening fresh, I think I Got the Blues (played loud) might secretly be my favorite (a bit like Let it Loose from Exile), but to say it's got competition in that regard would be an absurd understatement. I guess this is one of about 5 albums that has a possible claim for 2nd best Stones album after Exile - I personally would probably put it 3rd (after Let it Bleed), but it's more "Stones-y" (i.e., scuzzy in the best way) than LiB, and maybe any other album ever.

That creep can roll, man.

I really wanted to like this, but just didn't.

Just such an interesting album -- one question is whether if it was made by someone other than the guys who just made OK Computer, anyone would give it the time of day ... Anyway, I've grown to love it. Always found it funny that the refrain from one song is "this isn't happening" and then a few songs later, it's "this is really happening." Like many things Radiohead, I'm not really sure what it means, but it's interesting.

Another album I'm guessing is on here because it came out when the guy who made the list was in his 20's. 1,001 albums is a lot of albums and I guess you've got to have some stuff like this on there, but this was very instantly forgettable. Certainly not bad, though.

Dour, herion-soaked Teutonic supermodel with no discernible musical talent atonally warbles depressing lyrics written by others in broken English accompanied by increasingly bizarre instrumentation. 5 stars.

Well, here's another last 2 songs are arguably the best songs on the album album (ala Talking Heads '77). This is obviously an easy 5 stars, so I'll just say for anyone who hasn't read A Brief History of Seven Killings: It's awesome and features (an unnamed) Bob Marley.

What a great, great album this is - it's incredible that this is from 1981; serious time machine shit. I can't be the only one to notice that Sealand sounds exactly like Motion Picture Soundtrack from Kid A ... or maybe I am since I just had Kid A 2 days ago. There's a lot of that in here, though - stuff that reminds me of songs I really like that came out like decades later.

Another album I respect more than like.

Shit sandwich

2 albums by The Singer in a week - feels lucky. Stir it Up might be his best song.

Charms, not without, etc. etc.

Ok, this is my 4th album out of 180 or so total with Morrissey or the Smiths, which is just way too damn many. Plus this one has that awful late 80's drum (once you recognize it, you can't stop hearing it).

Another easy 5 stars and candidate for #2 album by The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band - the 3rd I've had of those to this point. I think I would put this behind the other 2, so the ranking goes as follows so far (all of these are after Exile, the clear #1, but I haven't had it yet): 2. Let it Bleed 3. Sticky Fingers 4. Aftermath There are some others that I suspect are on the list that will likely break into this (Some Girls immediately comes to mind), but so far this is what I have.

Hadn't noticed before how much Chris Martin's falsetto sounds like Thom Yorke's ... Coldplay is obviously no Radiohead, but this was a good listen. A lot like the "2-3 really good songs and the rest fine/inoffensive" albums that I also typically give 3-4 stars; this one had 4 really good ones so it gets 4.

4 stars for the music, 1 additional star for badassery.

This just ruled.

Among the many (many) reasons this has been worthwhile: I always thought I hated metal, when it turns out what I actually hated was a certain subset of metal (hair-metal, glam-metal ... whatever you call Van Halen and Aerosmith) - this (and Iron Maiden) ruled.

Kinda groaned when I saw this one come up, and then within 10 seconds was like "oh yeah, underneath everything else (granting that there's probably more "everything else" here than with literally anyone else on this list), this guy was fucking awesome." There's a good amount of forgettable filler that I'll likely never listen to again (which is why it'll never be Thriller), but the best songs are just overpoweringly great. The one that I had forgotten all about was The Way You Make Me Feel -- immediately following Bad, I was just like, "oh, this is absolutely getting 5 stars."

Another album that gets better and better the more I listen to it.

This is just so not my thing - sludgy, plodding, monotonous Nickelback-esque music with no finesse, wit or really anything much of anything redeeming. 2 stars because I guess I'm not utterly horrified by it, but it's really close to 1.

This album shows up on lots of lists like this one, so I've tried these guys a ton. I don't dislike them, but whenever you have to evaluate something by using a double negative, there's something missing. I acknowledge this is likely an "it's not you, it's me" problem - I think they may just be a bit too badass and cool for me. Lump them in with Nas, I guess.

In the last 2 weeks I've had this, Kiss (Destroyer), Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath) and Metallica (black album). This is the 2nd best and it's getting 2 stars. No more, please.

I don't know if it's all the metal I've been assigned here lately, but this hit me like a breath of fresh air. Really, really weird and repetitive fresh air, but fresh air nonetheless.

This is such a great, great album - one of the easiest 5 stars ever. It would probably be 4 stars just with Nightswimming and a bunch of ok stuff and it's obviously way, way more than that ... Can I just say how much I love the lyric about the photograph on the dashboard? I'm not even 100% sure I understand it -- it's just so damn evocative. (I'm also not 100% sure I understand what "evocative" is in this case, but it seems right). Anyway, for me, this is a good example of "a band's best album doesn't necessarily have to be your favorite." I'll always have a softer spot for Murmur, Life's Rich Pageant and Document -- all of which I assume we'll be getting to later -- though I acknowledge that this one is probably better.

Kind of annoyed that this one is on here, to be honest. Victoria is one of the greatest songs ever, so this gets a 3 just based on that, but everything else is just so, so meh. This is the Kinks' Bossanova. Anyway, there's way better stuff by the Kinks themselves that's apparently not on here - Muskwell Hillbilly in particular is about 100 times more fun.

Kind of a lite beer Bowie - not bad, and I admire the effort, but it's missing something.

If I can't stand (like, truly revile) Aerosmith, Van Halen, Metallica and others of that ilk, I really should hate this, right? And yet I do not. After careful consideration, I have discovered the reason: Those guys suck, these guys don't.

This is becoming a game of chicken as to whether the guys who run this establishment are gonna run out of Morrisey albums before I run out of 2s to give them. I'm feeling pretty confident in my infinite stockpile of 2s, but I'm getting a tiny bit concerned that there may also be an infinite number of Morrisey albums on here.

Cult of Personality is a banger, so minimum 3 for this album. The question is whether there's anything else that justifies going to a 4, which is really just another way of asking whether Glamour Boy is worth a full point on the 1-5 scale, since everything else is just kinda eh. No, no it is not.

This is very much not my thing - I was tempted to give 3 stars anyway because there's one song where they sound exactly like Tom Petty, but that was overcome by whatever the hell that last song was - oof.

This ruled, though I think my favorite type of blues is always going to be a bit raunchier than this.

Fun and upbeat, probably need to listen to it again to fully appreciate it.

More metal or metal-adjacent that is just not my thing. The sinister, evil-sounding voice in particular is grating on this one. Vividly remember these guys from the Epic video MTV played constantly - the one with the dying goldfish at the end - didn't like them then, don't like them now.

I really wanted to give this album a 1, the same way I gave Kanye and Clapton 1's. I ... just can't do it - this is too goddamn good, it steamrolls criticism. It's Chinatown or Annie Hall or Thriller or any other number of great works created by complete assholes. This is one of those albums you can listen to on repeat all day and not get sick of - there's nothing that's even a 4. I guess my favorite is Into the Mystic (because how can it not be?) but you could make a case for at least 3 others. I had forgotten how great Crazy Love and Caravan were in particular. Best Use of Van Morrison Songs in Movies/Premiere TV (not including Caravan in Last Waltz): 4. Domino (Clean and Sober) 3. Moondance (American Werewolf in London) 2. Everyone (Royal Tennenbaums) 1. Glad Tidings (Sopranos) They all rule, though. I'm thinking of creating a sub-list of stealth albums that are probably not in the running for greatest of all time, but are secretly in the next tier. Off the top of my head, this and The Cars are on that list. Probably My Aim is True will be too, but I haven't gotten that yet.

I listened to this 3 times yesterday to see if I can figure out where I rank it vs. The Suburbs (it's obviously not in the same league as Funeral) ... I think I still like The Suburbs more, though Intervention might be the best song on either album. Anyway, it's peak Arcade Fire so it's great.

I always forget whether ol' Buck was Hee or Haw. Bill James in the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract: "Dizzy [Dean] was beloved because he represented something which could no longer be seen first-hand on a Sunday drive. People of his ilk dominated television in the 1960's - the Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Gomer Pyle, Petticoat Junction, and Andy Griffith's village of gentle rubes. We watched them because they had been a part of who we were for 150 years, and we missed them." The term "gentle rubes" has stayed with me since I read this many years ago. It sounds insulting, and maybe it is, but I don't take it that way. Anyway, this was fun and great and Trouble and Me is going to be in my rotation for quite awhile.

It's hard to be remotely objective about an album that came out when you were 12 and you can remember exactly where you were and how you were feeling when you first heard many of the songs (e.g., I heard Our Lips are Sealed the first time on AM radio, waking up in the morning before junior high on a day when I was psyched because we were playing floor hockey in gym and, for a brief moment in time, I was somewhat adequate playing defense - I had the song in the back of my head the whole day, we won our game and I played great. Thus endeth my one positive memory of junior high). Short version: This may well just be a 4, but it's sure as shit getting 5 stars from me.

I completely missed this when it came out (checks notes, lol) about a quarter century ago. Always kind of had my back up against these guys since they were so obviously being sold as The Next Big Thing in the early-mid 1990's, when I was most prone to getting my back about stuff like that. This was good - much better than I was expecting - though everything by them still sounds pretty much the same to me.

So what do you do with an album that has 10 or so songs that, if they were the whole album, would be in the running for my all time top 25 or so, but also has about 40 songs that are completely forgettable and I will almost certainly never listen to again, and also takes 3 hours to listen to which is basically impossible to do in one sitting without at least doing something else, so much so that I don't really feel like I listened to the whole thing but damned if I'm going to go back and replay the stuff I don't feel like I heard because, I mean, seriously? In no way was the above sentence a metaphor for this album. 5 stars, I guess, but it's a conundrum.

Just a bit of cognitive dissonance trying to listen to a proletariat-friendly Weimar era German themed album on Youtube in 2026, with blaring insurance, cruise line, boner pills and rental car ads interrupting passionate lamentations of the plight of the worker and calls to seize the means of production roughly every 30 seconds. Actually, it's pretty much impossible to listen to anything on Youtube now with all the fucking ads and fully enshittified UI. 4 stars for the album, 0 stars for the experience trying to listen to it, and negative five billion stars for 2026 Youtube.

Putting this in the Stone Cold Classic Album That Everyone Knows But Never Really Seems To Come Up When People Talk About The Best Albums Of All Time category (SCATTERBOAT for short) along with Moondance and The Cars. The dogfight between Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding vs. the title song for best song on the album (I'd go with FFF, but it's close) is dwarfed by the true Battle Royale for second best: Is it Bennie and the Jets, Sweet Painted Lady, All the Girls Love Alice, Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting or Harmony? No clue - they're all incredible. The worst song is easy, though, and it's not Jamaica Jerk-Off - it's fucking Candle in the Wind, eccch.

It without charms its was not.

Gloomy old dude music, not really for me.

Really enjoyed this - it was completely unique/really weird, but in a good way. I suspect that if I had had time to listen to it more than once, I would have liked it even more; one of those albums that immediately grabs you, then sort of lost steam for me, but then, by the end, I really started to appreciate it.

And so we come to The Anthem - the best combination of pure fury and talent maybe ever. In hindsight, there was no way things were ever going to end well for the band that made this album, but that's ok: Most things don't end well. Funny, I was 22 when this came out, but I can't remember hearing it for the first time - it's like it was just suddenly there and then once it was there, it was everywhere. Imo, the greatest moment of the 1990's is the 90 seconds or so at the end of their set at the 1992 MTV awards - when the following happens in the following order: Krist N. flings his guitar 20 feet in the air and not only fails to catch it, but gets bonked on the head and hilariously collapses; Kurt C. attacks the speakers with his guitar, but instead of swinging it he, like, sort of stabs with it ... completely ineffectually; Dave G. grabs the mike and, for no apparent reason, mockingly shouts "Hi Axl" in like 5 times; then Kurt tries to knock over the drums, but again completely ineffectually by sort of half falling half jumping into them. It's the ultimate statement of someone's contempt for everyone else being exceeded only by their contempt for themselves, which is as good a mission statement for Gen X as I can think of: Fuck everyone, and everything, but especially me.

Not sure there has ever been a better matched movie to its soundtrack than this one - it's absolutely perfect: Unsettling and ominous but beautiful.

$240 worth of pudding, the album.