1001 Albums Summary

Thank you RNJesus, because without Kashmir I would still be trying to find that unbelievable riff ten years from now.

Ubiquitous horny, romantic and sad staples all together on one album, therapeutic for Gaye and great stuff, but What’s Going On mogs Let’s Get It On entirely. That he was bold enough to name one song Let’s Get It On and another Keep Gettin’ It On, and both are fantastic, is amazing work and You Know How to Ball is absolutely smutty.

Tracey Thorn’s voice is wondrous and I am a slave to the beat, but the production is less eclectic and absorbing than their contemporaries (see: Massive Attack/Tricky/Portishead etc). Textbook definition of Fine.

A wonderful old favorite. Not a soul or a voice on this spinning earth quite like Joni.

Love 90s alternative rock/grunge, love the doom metal energy, love Chris Cornell and the slick time signatures on this. But… that’s all I’ve got. I expected to love this instead I can just barely differentiate it, a shame. The length is diabolical too.

Favorites: Love Her Madly, Been Down So Long (ish), Cars Hiss By My Window, Hyacinth House, Riders of the Storm. Mostly extremely fascinating despite not being my taste, but certain tracks I simply hate Morrison’s voice (The Changeling, L’America and again Been Down So Long).

it’s all downhill from the title track, which due to childhood indoctrination of classic rock radio I still enjoy… But the title track is track ONE. Ladies and gentlemen, the Eagles.

I love getting this album now, of all times. It’s actively one of my very favorites. When I went on a month and a half long dive into Bowie’s music in 2025 I had already long since heard Blackstar, having dug into it when the man himself died mere days after its release, after his birthday. That didn’t by any means stop me from returning to it again and again as I tore through his material I hadn’t previously touched. Blackstar insists on staying with me now, as if it is now one of my increasing grey hairs. I listened to it once more on its ten year anniversary, making it all the funnier to get it from the 1001 albums randomizer just over a week later. The title track basks in circling the sound and distance of finalities, of Death, of time. I have seen it often noted that one of Bowie’s inspirations for this final album was Death Grips but nowhere is this more apparent than in the fraught, dark cacophony and violent power of ‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore. I follow Girl Loves Me around like a stranger I’ve known all my life but cannot speak to, the opportunity long gone to clarify the why’s and how’s. Dollar Days is melancholic, brittle yet contains a bold finality so frank in retrospect it sometimes pains me to tears. We are ten years on now from David Bowie’s death yet I Can’t Give Everything Away still feels like a final farewell I will never really be ready for, still feels like a fresh wound. Yet it’s laced with so much enigmatic kindness, an injury given with a gentle touch and goodbye. I am generally at war with myself over getting too attached to musicians and artists because generally they aren’t your friends or family, they are people who are capable of mistakes and lives lived at a distance from you, that possess talents that can touch us in indescribable ways. But it can’t be helped some days. Blackstar has always made that apparent. I do in fact miss him greatly still. I wasn’t ready for his goodbye. But I am glad he was able to make one. I’m glad it was this.

Good news: Shane McGowan is a poet Bad news: He needs lyrics/subtitles by default Good news: it’s a good album. Bad news: a little of it goes a very long way. I was burned out by track 8.

Promising for a first album, but still sounds like reheated leftovers.

Sometimes fine, most times a thousand years long.

A classic, an old favorite. How Halloween isn’t a literal holiday staple everywhere (and not just in my own personal rotation) is beyond me.

Enough potent imagery, poetic storytelling and frank intimacy to catch me falling madly in love with this man even after he’s long been gone. Like damn.

I respect it, but it just reminds me of music you’d hear in the background of a bar in the tropics when you’re on vacation and too often does it overstay its welcome.

Not remotely awful, but simply Not My Thing in any way.

Exactly as good as I wanted it to be after decades of knowing songs but never actually listening to a Daft Punk album, despite my enjoyment of disco and house. Every track was like crack to my ADD infested brain.

Incredible voice, safe as houses album and lyricism. Just not interesting or particularly exploratory. I spent at least half the runtime wishing I was listening to Amy Winehouse instead. That Lovesong cover is quite good though!

Jailbait is completely rancid song, but otherwise most of this bleeds together into a lot of nothing too terrible.

Nothing less than the best for Marvin.

Outside of the absolute jumpscare that is that first track alone, it’s like giving a Muppet a full time job at a piano bar. I respect the wit and bite though.

Better than I’m currently willing to give it credit for because Alanis’ shrill nasal vocals drive me completely up the wall.

Huge shame how utterly vile Kanye has become, but it’s a good album. Way too damn long though.

Occasionally fun. Never earthshaking and kind of forgettable outside of learning where Alright came from and who sang it. How much Brit pop is on this list again?

The most free space album you could give me up to this point. I adore this one. I went way too long (years ago) only knowing Kate Bush because of Placebo’s cover of Running Up That Hill and there was a brief stupid time where I thought the cover was better than the original. Ha! No. Not even remotely true. I know up through Waking the Witch (which is in lovely argument with Cloudbusting, The Big Sky, the title track and Running Up That Hill for which is my favorite song off the album) much better than I do Watching You Without Me into The Morning Fog, but this is an great excuse to revisit a mild blind spot.

Decent! Didn’t realize Brian Eno has producer credits on like six U2 records. Not much my thing though and even now I still have difficulty taking Bono remotely seriously and his melodramatic vacillating voice doesn’t help that.

Filed under I certainly respect and I recognize the talent and craft involved but don’t have the patience for it. Peaches in Regalia is excellent. Willie the Pimp is great until you’re four and a half minutes in and He’s Still Going at that solo for another four. The Gumbo Variations desperately needed to End. Not the audience on this one.

It may have came out in 1977, but it sure feels timeless as hell.

Unironically good until Axl Rose’s “cat’s tail being stepped on” vocals kick in, every single time. Except when he wails, he’s rather good at that.

I can hear and respect the talent on wild display. I can understand and even appreciate why so many love jazz like they do, but frankly I just don’t particularly enjoy it. This is no exception. Stay tuned.

The closest a britpop album ever got to me in my life. One everyone knows. And despite or because of Wonderwall, Noel’s whiny vocals nothing overstays its charm and who else has Champagne Supernova or Don’t Look Back in Anger?

“I can't sleep at night, when you're on my mind Bobby Womack's on the radio Saying to me, "If you think you're lonely now" Wait a minute this is too deep (too deep) I gotta change the station” Thanks Mariah. Frankly his batshit deranged personal life is far more interesting (and unsettling) than this album is but the music is smooth yet distant and not absorbing. Not interesting. It’s left my mind as quickly as it entered it.

Calming and strange and occasionally the vibes are very reminiscent of Portishead. I dig.

I am begging for more respites between all the jazz. I don’t ask for much.