My 1001 Albums Journey

Albums Rated

3.43

Average Rating

Complete

998 albums remaining

Rating Distribution

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Taste Profile

1960

Favorite Decade

Folk

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Wordsmith

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5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Third/Sister Lovers Big Star	5	2.79	+2.21
Slanted And Enchanted Pavement	5	3.04	+1.96
If You're Feeling Sinister Belle & Sebastian	5	3.18	+1.82
Rain Dogs Tom Waits	5	3.19	+1.81
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Wilco	5	3.31	+1.69
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady Charles Mingus	5	3.32	+1.68
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) The Kinks	5	3.39	+1.61
More Songs About Buildings And Food Talking Heads	5	3.42	+1.58
Ellington at Newport Duke Ellington	5	3.43	+1.57
Crosby, Stills & Nash Crosby, Stills & Nash	5	3.48	+1.52

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
(What's The Story) Morning Glory Oasis	1	3.85	-2.85
Californication Red Hot Chili Peppers	1	3.69	-2.69
Hotel California Eagles	1	3.59	-2.59
Definitely Maybe Oasis	1	3.53	-2.53
Parachutes Coldplay	1	3.46	-2.46
Eagles Eagles	1	3.29	-2.29
Tom Tom Club Tom Tom Club	1	3.03	-2.03
Black Holes and Revelations Muse	2	3.59	-1.59
Moon Safari Air	2	3.57	-1.57
Rust Never Sleeps Neil Young & Crazy Horse	2	3.51	-1.51

5-Star Albums (18)

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Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

Popular Reviews

Ellington at Newport

Duke Ellington · 1 likes

5/5

Shit cooks as it goes in. First listen I was annoyed by all the talking, but three listens later and I appreciated this as documentation of a real cookin event.

Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

The Kinks · 1 likes

5/5

I’m not sure the kids realize just how perfect and original the kinks were. I have a lot of thoughts in this album, this band, the passage of time and how much is being left on the side of these roads due to the instantaneous nature society. But I’m just listen to this album again.

It's Blitz!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs · 1 likes

2/5

I enjoyed some of their earlier singles- twitchy guitars and Karen o is definitely a charismatic performer; that said, this sounds like an LCD soundsystem album and I’m not Johnny Disco. I’m sure I might like some of these songs on a well curated playlist but I was glad when the album ended.

Live And Dangerous

Thin Lizzy · 1 likes

3/5

Muscula,r dude rock with lots of terrific guitar interplay. Both of those guys really ripped. Phil, his swag and charisma. I enjoyed this more and more as it went on. Some boring aside, I do look forward to revisiting this.

The Predator

Ice Cube · 1 likes

3/5

A level of misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism characteristic of the rap of the time (honestly even more so) paired with stories so vivid and expertly told delivered by one of the best to ever do it. Can say the same about his previous (and superior) first two solo albums. I hope he’s grown over the past three and a half decades. 3 as is; 5 without the skits and misdirected anger.

1-Star Albums (7)

All Ratings

Superunknown

Soundgarden

3/5

Solid, riff heavy rock and roll. Probably more like a 3.5 but not really my thing. I appreciate it though. I don’t think I’ve ever actually listened to it all the way through although certainly familiar with it from being adjacent to some of the music I loved in 1995 or whatever. The coda to super unknown is fun and the little marching band into Beatles melody of head down. Black hole sun is a winner thirty years later. It is just its own distinctive vibe (file under: Chris Isaak wicked game).

Rust Never Sleeps

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

2/5

Eh. There are so many incredible live Neil sets out there these days I don’t see needing to revisit this. Kind of meanders professionally until sedan delivery which is strange and fun and rips pretty hard before concluding with a crunchy, unenjoyable rendition of my my hey hey. 2.5*

Sheer Heart Attack

Queen

3/5

Maybe the only other queen album I’ve heard it in entirety aside from night at the opera. Brian and Fred announce their virtuosity right off the bat and I can imagine loving this album if you’re really into what they do. I felt like I was listening to the soundtrack for a play I hadn’t seen interspersed with some generic seventies rockers. A few highlights- killer queen, stone cold crazy- but this generally confirms that I’m not too interested in queen best their (mostly excellent) singles. I never really understood why all the metal bands loved queen so much but stone cold crazy is a metal blueprint. I wasn’t at all surprised to see that Metallica has covered it several times.

Band On The Run

Paul McCartney and Wings

4/5

Paul doing all his Paul things.

Live And Dangerous

Thin Lizzy

3/5

London Calling

The Clash

5/5

It’s a ten. A great band at their absolute peak. Diverse and tight. Each subsequent listen is fresh and powerful.

Cosmo's Factory

Creedence Clearwater Revival

4/5

Is CCR the quintessential American rock band? Fogerty was unstoppable at this point.

If You're Feeling Sinister

Belle & Sebastian

5/5

Was going to instinctively give it a four having lived with it for nearly three decades but then I popped it in. Their last release where it felt like it was just them and me. Their sound changes with Arab Strap (to great effect! [with diminishing returns thereafter]), closing a book on a once mysterious group.

Purple Rain

Prince

5/5

Best soundtrack ever. Prince proving he can do anything. Maybe the best pop album of the eighties. I had like eight copies of this across all formats. Will probably buy more just because. The fucking coolest.

You Are The Quarry

Morrissey

4/5

Murder Ballads

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

4/5

Nick at his most menacing.

It's Blitz!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

2/5

Another Music In A Different Kitchen

Buzzcocks

3/5

Does these mean there are two Buzzcock albums on the list?!? Punchy, aggressive melodic. Not nearly as awesome as singles going steady though

Rain Dogs

Tom Waits

5/5

Slanted And Enchanted

Pavement

5/5

The Downward Spiral

Nine Inch Nails

4/5

Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

5/5

With her preternatural voice and presence, Aretha singing baby shark for 45 minutes would still be a three star. But with songs as strong as these…

Welcome To The Pleasuredome

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

4/5

I’m not going to return to this album over and over but man what a strange

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul

Otis Redding

5/5

Otis taking other peoples songs and owning them. Heck yeah.

Legalize It

Peter Tosh

3/5

Eagles

1/5

Tepid watered down garbage. The pit of American rock and roll.

Elvis Presley

4/5

The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Charles Mingus

5/5

Mingus at his shamanistic best. Somehow ramshackle and meticulously orchestrated.

Tom Tom Club

1/5

No thank you.

Konnichiwa

Skepta

2/5

Not my kinda rap.

The Predator

Ice Cube

3/5

Ellington at Newport

Duke Ellington

5/5

Shit cooks as it goes in. First listen I was annoyed by all the talking, but three listens later and I appreciated this as documentation of a real cookin event.

Tracy Chapman

4/5

Sometimes a little clunky but always lovely with at least three perfect songs.

At Newport 1960

Muddy Waters

4/5

Starts a little politely- maybe due to the Newport audience of 1960. But really gets smoking midway through. Maybe not where I would start but worth a listen.

(What's The Story) Morning Glory

Oasis

1/5

No thanks. This band is for someone who is not me.

So Much For The City

The Thrills

2/5

Kinda sounds like a socal version of mid era belle and Sebastian. This is not an endorsement.

Go Girl Crazy

The Dictators

3/5

Fun trashy rock and roll that I would never be unhappy to hear but at the same time, i can’t imagine I’ll ever listen to it again.

Electric Prunes

The Electric Prunes

2/5

All down hill after the single. Sounds like the band in a sixties youth comedy made by squares.

The Velvet Underground

5/5

A new iteration of the band and largely devoid of cales avant garde influence, lou might be at his melodic peak and I can’t get enough of sterlings guitar tone. Perfect in a new way.

Black Holes and Revelations

Muse

2/5

No.

Third/Sister Lovers

Big Star

5/5

A life changing album for me. Definitely mislead me as to what the Big Star sound is. Perfect in every sad, decaying way possible.

Moon Safari

Air

2/5

Fine for background music. Has a vibe. Boring one on one. Much prefer their soundtrack to virgin suicides, which has strong stronger songs and not just music.

...Baby One More Time

Britney Spears

2/5

Baby one more time is an earworm. But I’m not going to be spending my time listening to this.

Red Headed Stranger

Willie Nelson

4/5

Terrific album.

Crosby, Stills & Nash

5/5

Sparkling production. Did albino do this?!? Celestial harmonies. Songs tha stand the test of time. Kicks off with an all time favorite. Fuck it. Five.

Endtroducing.....

DJ Shadow

4/5

Listened to this a dozen times over the years but maybe I was listening wrong bc this time it made sense. Sudden tempo changes. Time signature variations. The unexpected arrival of new cool sounds.

The Low End Theory

A Tribe Called Quest

5/5

Maybe the best from a band that has multiple bests.

Fetch The Bolt Cutters

Fiona Apple

4/5

It’s starting to hit.

At Mister Kelly's

Sarah Vaughan

4/5

So stinking professional it almost doesn’t sound live. Perfect Sunday morning, coffee sipping, newspaper reading soundtrack.

Giant Steps

The Boo Radleys

3/5

Starts surprisingly strong before being bogged down by mediocre songwriting. My guess is that if a BR fanatic made me a comp I would enjoy it. Dunno. Might revisit this one.

White Light

Gene Clark

4/5

After this one and no other, I’m convinced I need to listen to more gene clark. That Byrds family tree is really something.

Here, My Dear

Marvin Gaye

4/5

Marvin gets real starkly confessional. Not a singles album.

Hotel California

Eagles

1/5

I just don’t care to F with these guys. Their music does nothing for me.

Boston

3/5

It’s Boston by Boston and that’s what it sounds like.

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Mudhoney

4/5

Pearl

Janis Joplin

4/5

Some juke joint rave ups and some stone cold classics. Her voice and a killer band.

Nighthawks At The Diner

Tom Waits

4/5

Not at the top of my TW pyramid but this one sounds real good on a solo road trip. Must engage with it fully to appreciate it.

More Songs About Buildings And Food

Talking Heads

5/5

I have room in my heart for even more songs about building and food.

Elephant

The White Stripes

3/5

Great guitar time, dynamics, and man I even like his voice. I thought I was headed to a four and then got a few songs in and found them unlistenable. Not a songwriter. A guitar player. I like the primal backbeat quite a bit. I think this is where they started taking themselves way too seriously and ended up less self aware of the gimmick.

Bookends

Simon & Garfunkel

5/5

I don’t care. Maybe not a five. Art has the voice of an angel; Paul is an amazing guitar player-weird chords, expertise picking. Three stone cold classics.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco

5/5

Practically renders all Wilco albums after it meaningless (although I’ve come o enjoy the narcotic hangover that is Ghost). I love it. A ramshackle singular piece, fraying at the edges, threatening to topple from its axis.

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

OutKast

4/5

From Elvis In Memphis

Elvis Presley

4/5

Elvis going fulll Memphis. Took them a few songs to get his voice right in the mix. Really like this era.

Deserter's Songs

Mercury Rev

4/5

Wasa five but then I listened to Boces and yerself is steak and it doesn’t quite reach those heights for me. Still a great album. Downhill from here.

The Last Of The True Believers

Nanci Griffith

3/5

Maybe if I had been in college in 1987 and I was laying around in a dorm room with my girlfriend at the time who loved this album and we played it over and over and over, I might have more affection for it. As it stands it’s pretty generic singer songwriter stuff for me BUT it certainly ends on a high note with the last three songs being the most distinctive. I’ll revisit them.

Aftermath

The Rolling Stones

3/5

Some bangers. Some classics. Some songs that are way too long. But tons of hints of what’s to come. 3 1/2

Stand!

Sly & The Family Stone

4/5

Might be a five but it was an inattentive listen. Still funked and rocked.

Live / Dead

Grateful Dead

4/5

I would have become a Dead fan significantly sooner had they followed the jazzy space rock thread. I need to steep myself in this era a bit.

Californication

Red Hot Chili Peppers

1/5

Fuck no.

...And Justice For All

Metallica

3/5

I mean, it’s good but I would have to be in a super specific mood to listen to an entire Metallica album.

Debut

Björk

4/5

I resented this album for a long time for not being a Sugarcubes album. My bad. A solo career with many many highlights now across three decades.

Blood, Sweat & Tears

2/5

Nothing could sound more 70s a.m. radio riding around in Mom’s 10 Chevy nova than this. Doesn’t resonate with me. It’s professional. I am going to check out the Al Kooper led debut to see if it’s got a little swing and grit to it but if has this seventies sheen then it’s in the toilet for me.

Rocks

Aerosmith

2/5

I hate to relegate anything to a genre but I’m this case I will: I do not enjoy seventies hard rock. Van Halen, AC/DC, thin lizzy. It doesn’t resonate with me. And maybe Aerosmith, a band I try to understand every few years through their first three or four albums, is at the bottom for me. Plus one because Perry really is an excellent guitar player.

Rumours

Fleetwood Mac

5/5

Immaculate. Pristine. Meticulous.

The Score

Fugees

4/5

I haven’t listened to it in years. I hadn’t heard all the once omnipresent singles in ages. I thought it would sound dated and overly familiar but it didn’t- fresh, new, exciting. 4 1/2 because the skits are errrr.

They Were Wrong, So We Drowned

Liars

3/5

Chaos doom incantations. Their best work yet to come.

Hard Again

Muddy Waters

4/5

Terrific set. I don’t love it as much as I do After Rain as far as late period muddy but I’m not slagging this one, I just love that dirty grimy album. Muddy and a band of guys who know what the fu k they’re doing with produced by a guy who clearly loves the music and knows when to leave well enough alone in a room for three days. The real deal.

Aqualung

Jethro Tull

2/5

I just don’t connect with it at all. I was waiting for the songs to end. I feel like you have to be into something that I am clearly not into to really enjoy this.

A Northern Soul

The Verve

2/5

I don’t know. Inoffensive, low volume background music maybe. I know that one song from the commercial but it isn’t on the album and I don’t care to listen to it anyhow. I’ll spin it twice. (Update: nah) But sonically, melodically uninteresting. At its best. Some of it sounds like a pop version of a Spacemen 3 song with some funk wah.

Scream, Dracula, Scream

Rocket From The Crypt

3/5

I have tried several times over several decades to enjoy this album/band. But it just doesn’t hit for me. I appreciate that it is pure rock and roll but kinda generic to me. And I really don’t like the vocals. Would’ve appreciated them buried in the mix a bit more. I think if I saw them live back when that I would have a different opinion.

Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

The Kinks

5/5

Parachutes

Coldplay

1/5

Pablum.

The Rising

Bruce Springsteen

2/5

Why in lords name would I pick this up if I wanna listen to Bruce.

Blue Lines

Massive Attack

4/5

I’ve never embraced its reputation as an influential, classic LP, but still a very strong album with some excellent, atmospheric, close to perfect songs. But it’s a little too R&B for me in spots and has at least two songs that are unlistenable. Would be a terrific like 7 song EP.

Broken English

Marianne Faithfull

3/5

I’ll give it another listen because there is something there. Put on my first go around. I didn’t think the songs were that strong and I definitely input off by the period production. Why’d ya do it is easily the standout for me. Marianne is a treasure but this isn’t the one for me.

Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus

Spirit

2/5

Borrrrrrrrrrrrrring

Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

Dexys Midnight Runners

4/5

A little punk snarl, some blue eyed soul and a whole lot of horns!would fit nicely on a shelf next to Elvis Costello, not because they sound the same, but because of an obvious affection for the music, they grew up with filtered through the lens of the music they came of age 2. An absolute rave up of an album. Loved it.

Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs

Marty Robbins

3/5

Great songs and instrumentation, but is voice is too golden for me to believe this. Needs a little Cash snarl or Willie rasp or whatever the hell came out of Merle haggard. Still a solid album, but a bit more kitsch than authenticity.

Led Zeppelin

4/5

Nothing to add here. Sometimes they sound like a parody but when they hit, they hit hard.

Dare!

The Human League

3/5

Probably more like 3.5. I can’t imagine I will spend too much time with this album but a few (several?) of these songs could be on a great playlist.

Paranoid

Black Sabbath

4/5

Sinister, menacing, riff heavy. I like Black Sabbath but I would have have discovered ut at a diffeeent time in my life to really feel it rather than merely appreciate it. much of it still hits hard.

Bongo Rock

Incredible Bongo Band

3/5

A bunch of dudes got together in the early seventies to write the songs to be sampled in eighties rap songs and played at sports arenas.

Virgin Suicides

Air

4/5

Warm and creepy.

Definitely Maybe

Oasis

1/5

If you care not for substance or originality but prefer anthemic yet sterile pablum, have I got the band for you!

Arise

Sepultura

3/5

First couple songs hit pretty hard before it started sounding ‘samey’ to me (which I’m sure it isn’t, but I don’t have metal ears. I would give it another listen or cherry pick some songs.

Phaedra

Tangerine Dream

3/5