1001 Albums Summary

Favorite Tracks: Picture This / 11:59 / I'm Gonna Love You Too / Just Go Away Rating: 4.1 I've heard Blondie's hits, of course, but this was my 1st time listening to this album. Quite a range of sounds, but great guitar work throughout and Debbie Harry's voice sounds great across the album. Enjoyable listen!

Favorite Tracks: Up On Cripple Creek / Look Out Cleveland / Jawbone Rating: 2.9 I've heard this album a few times before; while not my favorite genre, I can dig the folksy, southern rock vibes that never fully stray into country. And Up On Cripple Creek is an all time banger. The multiple vocalists are cool. I'd have to be in exactly the right frame of mind to put this on -- by a lake with a beer? next to a campfire with a doobie? apparently just not sober? -- but I can appreciate the musicality and that this is a seminal album that defined a certain sound for a lot of music that came afterwards.

Favorite Tracks: Zombie / Mr Follow Follow / Mistake Rating: 4.4 Only day 3 for me with 1001 Albums, but this is the kind of exposure I was hoping for from this exercise! I'd never heard of Fela Kuti and found this album super interesting and enjoyable. Will definitely dig more into his discography, and reading about Fela on Wikipedia was fascinating, what a story!

Favorite Tracks: Rockafeller Skank / Gangster Trippin' / Kalifornia / Rating: 3.25 Crazy that this went 2x Platinum in the US and 4x Platinum in the UK with over 5 mil copies sold. How far EDM has come! There's a solid Pitchfork retrospective by Brad Shoup that I enjoyed reading about how this album, and how the culmination of Norman Cook into Fatboy Slim all came about. For me, it's charming in a nostalgic sort of way. I listened to the whole hour-ish straight through as a background to work emails. In that environment a lot of the songs hit as a bit repetitive and they are all about 2 minutes too long for something where the entire conceit is that you can hear 15 seconds of a track and "get it." But the bangers still bang, and it all sort of fades into a toe tapping, if a bit mind numbing, mélange.

Favorite Tracks: Mannish Boy / Bus Driver / The Blues Had a Baby / Walkin' Thru the Park Rating: 4.2 I dig a good blues album, and I've listened to this before along with some other Muddy Waters' albums like the Chess Box, the London Sessions, and even Electric Mud. Overall this is just a rock-solid, classic, blues album that leans a bit into rock, and Muddy's voice and guitar playing shines throughout. The harmonica parts, courtesy of James Cotton, are great throughout as well.

Favorite Tracks: The Unforgiven / Nothing Else Matters Rating: 1.8 Listened to the (Remastered) version. I've just started this Album Generator journey (this is album 5) and it feels like I need decide my paradigm for scoring. I've always preferred listening to a full album vs. singles or a playlist; my main goal for working through this list is to expose myself to classic albums through the ages that I might not bump into otherwise, in order to expand my own horizons as an appreciator of music. Should I endeavor to score objectively? If so, this album obviously had a massive impact, the production is polished, the guitar work rips, and the rhythm section is on fire. It went freakin' 15x platinum for goodness sake. Should I score it by how much I personally enjoyed the listen, and/or likelihood I'll listen again? If so, this is just not a genre I vibe with and even if an "all-timer" like Enter Sandman pops up on my radio, I'll tune to another station. I'm glad I gave this a listen, but there's zero chance it'll be in my rotation or that any tracks here will be on any playlist I create. So, decision-time. For posterity, I'm going to define my scoring on a personal enjoyment level: 5- Excellent from beginning to end; would listen again, maybe even right away 4- Highly enjoyable listen; will save specific songs and likely listen to this album again in the right mood 3- Fine; I can appreciate it even if it isn't my thing. Didn't exactly dislike but didn't do anything for me 2- Maybe a song or 2 I didn't mind, but on the whole I just "got through it" 1- Nothing enjoyable; zero chance I'll listen to this crap again Which means final score for Metallica Metallica.... 1.8

Favorite Tracks: Come As You Are / The Man Who Sold the World / Polly / Lake of Fire / All Apologies / Where Did You Sleep Last Night Rating: 4.7 Own this on vinyl! I have a very nice 25th Anniversary edition. Incredible that this was performed in a single take. While I was in high school in the 90's and a big indie rock guy generally, I wouldn't necessarily say I'm a massive Nirvana fan. But there's a rawness and realness that comes through this entire performance which is a big part of why it has captured so much attention. The covers are fantastic, and it's clear Kurt and the band really wanted the Nirvana songs to feel a certain way, not just "unplugged" as it were. For me it's impossible to listen to this album and not think about "what could have been" if things had been different just 5 months later. I just listened through my headphones at work, and I'll probably go home tonight and put on the vinyl, which is really warm with a great soundstage...sounds almost like being there. Easy 5 stars for me on this one.

Favorite Tracks: Coyote? Rating: 2.2 Joni's voice is pleasant, I liked the low-key jazzy vibes, and the bass playing throughout is so warm and melodic and sophisticated...that signature Jaco fretless sound. But man this whole thing just ran together into one drowsy, meandering, rambling listen. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had really dug into it with the lyrics in front of me, and perhaps Joni's songwriting/poetry might have blown me away. But that's not typically how I listen to music, I dunno. On the whole, this was unobjectionable but didn't really do much for me. I put on Heavy Weather by Weather Report after this, and enjoyed that listen WAY more.

Favorite Tracks: Blister in the Sun / Kiss Off / Prove My Love / Promise / Gone Daddy Gone Rating: 4.3 As a bass player I love Brian Ritchie's thrashy, thumpy acoustic bass riffing on this album. Haven't listened to this in a few years and enjoyed it beginning to end yet again. Its unpolished rawness just works perfectly for this ramshackle set of brash, twisted, angsty yet hilarious and catchy tunes. The treasure of this may that they self-funded it before even meeting their record label; who knows what we would have gotten with some coked-out 80's A&R guy overseeing it, but it wouldn't have been this brilliant.

Favorite Tracks: Love in Vain / Country Honk / Let It Bleed / Monkey Man / You Can't Always Get What You Want Rating: 3.9 Listened to the (50th Anniversary Edition/Remastered 2019) version. The Stones take on a bunch of different rock/blues genres, and more or less succeed. An enjoyable listen, although the opener and closer are really stand out tracks.

Favorite Tracks: Buffalo Stance / So Here I Come Rating: 2.2 Had to just skip a couple of these tracks; "The Next Generation" was so weird it made me uncomfortable, "Heart" is SO cheesy, and "My Bitch" was super cringe. Some fun samples; there's a LOT going on here but it mostly comes together into kind of a fun, rattly, synth-y 80's pop melange. Overall this one album just isn't for me though.

Favorite Tracks: Finest Worksong / Exhuming McCarthy / It's The End of the World... / The One I Love Rating: 4.1 I listened to the "25th Anniversary Edition - Remastered" versions.

Favorite Tracks: That's Not Me / Sloop Jon B / God Only Knows / Caroline, No Rating: 3.8 Ah, here we go, one of those albums that when you start to get into vinyl shows up on every MUST HAVE list. Well, guess what I don't own "Rumors" or "Moondance" or even "Buena Vista Social Club" either lol. Overall, a nice little listen. I can certainly understand all the praise for the production, it's rich and so balanced and there's such a diversity of sounds and instrumentation. I liked the few songs I already knew I liked, and the rest were pleasant. I found the high pitch falsetto a little distracting generally. I'll round up to a 4 for me score, I'd certainly listen to this again though, especially with headphones...but I wasn't moved enough to go order it on vinyl :)

Favorite Tracks: Village Green Preservation Society / Picture Book / Animal Farm / Starstruck / Rating: 4.1 I listened to the 2018 Stereo Remaster version. I've never listened to this album -- or much of The Kinks, in general -- and really enjoyed this. Except for "All of My Friends" which I ended up skipping. Deserves a closer second listen, and makes me want to listen to more of the Kinks.

Favorite Tracks: Satanic Reverses / Television the Drug of the Nation / Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury / Music and Politics Rating: 3.8 Had to do some extra effort to search out tracks 5, 6, 12, 13. Must b sampling issues? Mostly listened on Spotify. I've listened to a good bit of Spearhead, actually, but I had no idea Michael Franti was in an even more politically-charged hip-hop group prior! I'm a fan of old-skool hip hop, and here Franti channels his inner Chuck D. A lot of this sure sounds extra prescient listening here in January 2026 as fascists kill peaceful protestors with impunity in our streets. Production is a bit thin, but musically it's got a great groove with plenty of organic, interesting samples and funky backbone. I can dig it!

Favorite Tracks: Hidden Place / Pagan Poetry / Aurora / Unison Rating: 3.9 Listened to lossless from Spotify in my Sennheisers. Wow - gorgeous, rich, fascinating album. Haven't heard much Bjork other than radio hits. Sensual and super explicit a couple times! If you don't listen to the lyrics too much, it's very chill, moody, a lot of low-fi or trip-hop vibes. Unison is a fantastic closer.

Favorite Tracks: See No Evil / Friction / Marquee Moon / Prove It Rating: 4.6 Wow - this is brilliant! This makes two 5star discoveries for me thus far on my 1001 albums journey. The dueling guitar work with interesting little riffs and counter melodies is excellent throughout, but I'm also loving the fantastic rock bass lines and energy of the drumming. Great production here too, obviously just a super tight and talented band. I'm going right back for a second listen with more focus on the lyrics.

Favorite Tracks: Subterranean Homesick Blues / Maggie's Farm / Outlaw Blues / It's Alright, Ma Rating: 4.3 Good timing for this one, I just watched the fairly recent biopic "A Complete Unknown" which spent a lot of time on this era of Dylan's transition from traditional folk. Funny to listen to this 60 years later with some understanding of how controversial this was at the time! I used to make fun of Dylan's singing voice -- and probably still will lol -- but I really dig this album.

Favorite Tracks: Firesuite / Sea Song / Catch The Sun Rating:2.8 I only discovered Doves within the last year, from their excellent 2025 album Constellations for the Lonely. I haven't dug much into their older work, though, so I was excited for this listen. Unfortunately I found this to be a bit of a letdown, and looking at other reviews now seems I'm not the only one. Didn't find much that stood out here, for me it was sort of pleasantly bland and generic. Catch The Sun was likely my favorite track here but for some reason sounds completely unlike the rest of the album. I'd put this on as some background music to work to.

Favorite Tracks: Building Steam / Changeling / What Does Your Soul Look Like / Organ Donor / Midnight in a Perfect World Rating: 4.3 This is an album I already know well, and enjoy...along with a bunch of other trip-hop and related genres, low-fi etc. One of the defining albums for "sampling as an art" and a foundational work that influenced a ton of artists afterwards.

Favorite Tracks: Dunno these all sounded pretty much the same and it was over before I realized it Rating: 3.0 I like a little more pop/musicality in my punk than this. But, it's fine, I get it as an early example of the genre. I read the Wiki and this quote from Mark Deming pretty much sums it up for me: "As such things go, it's tight, reasonably well played, the songs kinda sorta have hooks, and Keith Morris is a pretty good frontman, but if you're looking for nuance, you're pretty much out of luck.:

Favorite Tracks: Rating: 2.0 I listened to the 2013 Remaster version on Spotify. Suspicion that I don't care for the Eagles confirmed. It's cheesy, it's boring, it's choring. At least now I can say I gave it a chance...this ain't for me. Hopefully a bunch of Eagles songs don't start showing up in my Spotify algorithm.

Favorite Tracks: Freedom / Break / A Day at the Races / What's Golden / High Fidelity / Sum of Us Rating: 3.9 One of my favorite early 00's groups. The MCs are fire -- how can you not love Chali 2Na and that epic voice, he really steps it up on this album. The hella dope breakbeat, jazz-flute, uptempo beats from Cut Chemist bring the vibes. There's definitely an old-skool feel to this, and J5 leans into it with appearances from Pearcy P, Big Daddy Kane, and Kool Keith. "Quality Control" is usually the go-to J5 album for me, but this is a polished effort with great track flow.

Favorite Tracks: Shot By Both Sides / The Light Pours Out of Me / Touch and Go Rating: 3.7 I listened to the 2007 remastered version on Spotify. Jagged, jangly, synth-y post-punk that rattles and rockets throughout a very to-the-point album. Some really cool guitar work here, and the keys are very in your face. Great album that I wasn't familiar with before this!

Favorite Tracks: Break on Through / Soul Kitchen / Light My Fire Rating: 3.0 I listened to the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, featuring a 2017 remaster. I generally enjoyed the classic hits on this album, but also skipped a couple songs: The Crystal Ship / Alabama Song. This one will fall into the category of classic albums that I'm glad I listened to and appreciated, but not going to be spending any additional time with. A LOT of organ on this.

Favorite Tracks: Sixteen Saltines / Freedom at 21 / I'm Shakin' / Trash Tongue Talker / Hip Poor Boy Rating: 3.9 I've listened to this album a few times before, along with a lot of Jack White's other projects. Hell, I've even been to Third Man Records in Nashville and bought a Raconteurs album! There's probably 3 or 4 other Jack albums I go back to more often than this ... including just about any White Stripes album... but this is a fun, rollicking, blues-y album with no real skips and couple standout jams.

Favorite Tracks: Jumpin' Jack Flash (kinda maybe?) / Mamata / Metamorphosis Rating: 3.2 I honestly can't say I've ever sat down and listened to much sitar music, rock or otherwise. I found this mostly enjoyable; I put it on while sending some work emails and nodded along. I was able to apprecate the covers for what they are, no sacrilege there in my book. Sagar (The Ocean) really dragged on...I skipped ahead through it multiple times and never really caught a groove I liked. Production-wise I thought it was fantastic, great clarity & dynamism, interesting different drums throughout, cool stereo effects esp on a few tracks liek Metamorphosis. This sent me down the rabbit hole a bit and I also listened to Walking On from 1999 with State Of Bengal....if you liked the vibes of this but though "why can't it be trip-hop," well, you're in luck!

Favorite Tracks: Ted, Just Admit It / Standing in the Shower Thinking / Mountain Song / Jane Says Rating: 3.7 I'm pretty familiar with Ritual, but not sure I've ever listened to this one the whole way through. No shock, but Mountain Song and Jane Says are stand-out, rock out with your guac out bangers. Definitely sounds ahead of its time and presages a lot of where music would go in the 90's. Some cool guitar work, big ole' drums in the mix, and overall solid production ... it rocks hard enough that Perry's voice actually mostly works.

Favorite Tracks: Who Is It / Desired Constellation Rating: 2.4 Listened to "Vespertine" for this list a couple weeks ago, and on the whole enjoyed that album significantly more. Several songs on here were skips for me: Submarine was weird, and Ancestors .... yiiiikes never again. From the wiki: "Medúlla received critical acclaim from music critics, with many calling it "unique", although others deemed it "confusing"." Yep...somewhere on a bizzaro spectrum between unique and confusing is about right. Some interesting ideas, pretty cool that Mike Patton and Raz'hel worked on this, but yeah just not for me.

Favorite Tracks: Thank You for Sending Me an Angel / The Good Thing / I'm Not in Love Rating: 4.2 Listened to the 2025 remaster from the Super Deluxe Edition in lossless. Gave this 3 listens within about a week, and it just keeps growing on me. Byrne's vocals certainly require some time to get used to, granted. I love the bass playing throughout this album, there's some incredible jams on tracks like The Good Thing , Found a Job, and even Take Me to the River. It's quirky, it's pop, it's surprisingly funky, the playing is really tight. Gimme this kind of "artsy" 10 times out of 10 over all the synthy new-wave/new-Romantic early 80's stuff!

Favorite Tracks: NY State of Mind / Life's a Bitch / The World is Yours / Represent Rating: 4.7 A stone cold classic of East Coast hip hip, one of the best hip hop albums ever recorded, and one of my personal favs. 39 mins of straight fire. I get goosebumps every time I hear "I dunno how to start this shit" and Nas launches into the pure heat of NY State of Mind - recorded in a single take, first attempt, he'd just finished writing it. If you don't like this album, you don't like hip hop. Nuff said.

Favorite Tracks: Sign O' The Times / Starfish & Coffee / I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man / Adore Rating: 3.6 Listened to the 2020 Remaster version. Yup, it'sa Prince album. Some real bangers, some ego-stroking filler tracks, a kitchen sink full of styles and sounds...all pretty creative, all with plenty of musicianship. I gotta be in the right mood for it personally.

Favorite Tracks: Quiet Life / Halloween / Rating: 2.9 I listened to the Deluxe Edition on Spotify with the 2020 remaster. A little surprised to see this was released in 1980, sounds full on 80's new-wave. This was apparently an influential album and I can hear why. Or maybe they were just knocking off Bowie in turn? I dunno. Well-crafted, hooky, kind of eerie synth-pop. Some sick fretless bass lines. It's a bit TOO 80's for my personal taste, and it drug on a bit through the middle. But a cool album overall.

Favorite Tracks: Pretty in Pink / All of This & Nothing / She Is Mine Rating: 3.4 Seems like I'm getting a LOT of early 80's music for only being about 50 albums into this thing? This week has been Prince Sign O' the Times, Japan, Ian Drury, now this all in a row. I'm synth'd out and talking in an exaggerated British accent. Ah well, I guess my goal was to listen to stuff I wouldn't normally. I like this alright, fairly upbeat post-punk with occasional horns. Drums all sound like they were recorded in an airport bathroom.

Favorite Tracks: Crosstown Traffic / Voodoo Chile / 1983 / Still Raining, Still Dreaming / All Along the Watchtower Rating: 4.1 Amazing album, although I do think it suffers a bit from it's length. Multiple 13+ min songs is a choice...although both Voodoo Chile and 1983 were two of my favorite songs here. At points it just runs together, even though the technical skill is always on display. All in all, enjoyed jamming along through this classic.

Favorite Tracks: Big Iron / Cool Water / The Strawberry Roan / Hanging Tree / El Paso Rating: 3.8 Have never heard of Marty Robbins, but I immediately recognized "Big Iron" from Fallout lol. I liked this way more than I was expecting! I literally never listen to country music, but this album was a treat. Great voice, wonderful storytelling, fun guitar work, cool badass cowboy ballads full of gun battles, wild horses, and beautiful Mexican maidens. Good stuff.

Favorite Tracks: El Cayuco / Cuando Te Vea / Hong Kong Mambo / Saca Tu Mujer Rating: 3.9 I listened to the (Legacy Edition) on Spotify. Phenomenally fun album; impossible not to listen to this without some part of your body moving involuntarily. Tight, talented musicianship from the orchestra, especially the horns, and the production sounded great to me.

Favorite Tracks: none Rating: 1.3 This probably melted faces in 1968. I found it a complete slog, the covers were the only tolerable part and the rest of the album was.....wooof. Guitar in particular was bordering on out of tune constantly, and it didn't help that the whole thing sounded like it was recorded at an open mic night in an empty dive bar. I like the blues, I like rock, I like lo-fi and garage...this ain't it son.

Favorite Tracks: 15 Step / Bodysnatchers / Jigsaw Falling Into Place / Videotape Rating: 4.2 Hell yeah, here we go. My all time favorite Radiohead album is "The Bends," so I was thrilled when this was released with more of a return to a rock-driven sound, although one certainly informed by "Kid A" and "Hail To the Thief." For me it's complex & just experimental enough, but the thru line of an actual band playing actual instruments - quite well, actually, great rhythm section on this - makes sure that it also just rocks.