1001 Albums Summary

I've been listening to Led Zeppelin for 30 years.. They just aren't my thing. There are sparks of good things on here, Immigrant Song is OK. Tangerine is one of my favorite LZ songs. Mostly though, these songs could possibly be really good if Robert Plant didn't screech all over them.

I hate to give this star one album. From Warren Zevon to the Mountain Goats, I love a lot of music that is folk adjacent. I love Hallelujah. But this album was a tough listen for me. Where music I'm not loving can sometimes slip into the background of my attention, this album kept my focus on itself, but that was not a good thing. I actively disliked listening to it.

I'd heard half of this album on the radio over the years, but this whole album is fantastic!

The Police aren't my favorite band, I've only ever heard the radio hits. This was my first time listening to an entire Police record. This wasn't a bad time. It won't be elevated to a spot where I listen to it all of the time, but I enjoyed it enough for the duration.

This album is obviously Bowie trying something new. The results are middling. But the album is bookeneded with radio hits that are pretty good.

An obvious classic. Aretha is an amazing singer, and the songs are powerful. This album is more like a time capsule than something I'd be interesting in listening to often.

I imagine that this album sounded like the future when it was released. But this album is a stack of cold, digital sounds that attempt to be a facsimile of music, while never really getting there. There was one track, perhaps Seconds, late in the album that had a warmth of decent modern electronic music. Otherwise, the rest of this album, including Don't You Want Me, is an easy pass for me.

This album was way better than I was expecting! I thought it was going to be old hippie noise, but this was a really good group of songs! I was also surprised when I recognized This Will Be Our Year, a song I recognized now is a cover by OK Go.

Not my thing

I was familiar with Carol King, but I had never listened to all of Tapestry until now. I vascillated between 4 and 5, but landed on 4. These songs have a lot of heart, and have a timeless quality to them, even as the production has a dated early 70s feel to it.

I remember hearing this album when it was new, the Bucket was one of my favorite songs that summer. This album is solid, but it's a little underbaked. By the release of Because of the Times, Kings of Leon will have their sound down, and their next several albums are at least 4/5 efforts.

The talent and creativity of Jimi Hendrix guitar playing is readily evident all across this album. While Hendrix is never going to be favorite style of music, listening with fresh ears, these tracks can really light a fire in me. This album is full of hits I have heard before on radio and films and several of the album tracks I wasn't previously familiar with were also quite good. However, I feel the album was too long by a few tracks, and I was happy to be through it when it was over. I didn't expect to like this album enough to warrant 4 stars, but this album was able to surprise me.

I had never listened to this album before, but I am glad that I have now. This album was very easy to listen to. I expected an album to sound like a time capsule of it's age, but it has a timelessness that makes me want to add to it my collection.

This the the first time I ever sat down and listened to an entire Elvis record. It was a mix of songs that sound like the soundtrack to an Oceans 11 style "cool" movie, and some croony songs. I don't see myself adding this to the regular rotation, but I had a decent time listening to this. Suspicious Minds is a classic.

I get this is an important, historic album. But it wasn't something I'd look forward to revisiting.

Several years ago, I listened to Aja because a friend told me it was great, and I was experimenting with albums from the "all time great" lists. I did not like it. I wasn't expecting much from Pretzel Logic. But after Rikki, which I knew from radio play, this album was easier to listen to than I expected. The music is technical. I can easily how this album would reward repeat listens, gaining familiarity and anticipating little things. Unfortunately, I would find that somewhat difficult to do. The lyrics are, to be charitable, profoundly stupid. I assume the lyrical content was some mix of inside jokes, some.weird early 70s brand of "cool" that does not translate to a modern listener, or the result of the very specific drugs of the era (does doing quaaludes make Steely Dan appealing???) The overall package is music that isn't actively offensive. At 33 minutes, this album doesn't wear out it's welcome. I could stand if this music was playing in tbe background with friends or something. But this didn't convince me to seek out more Steely Dan into my musical life.

I hit play on his album in Spotify without looking at the track list to see what I was in for. Unless I am mistaken, I had never heard I Ain't the One on track 1. Then, it was immediately followed by 3 staples of classic rock radio, all of them huge hits. The next three tracks were also new to me, then the record closes with Free Bird. The four 'filler' songs sounded exactly like Skynyrd, but were also somewhat forgettable. It leaves me struggling to figure out how to rank this record. This is only my 23rd day of this challenge. I've heard a few really good albums, several kind of good albums, and a bunch that were ok at best. But the four songs are all time greats. I'm of the opinion that Free Bird is overrated. But it's still a pretty great song. So is Tuesday's Gone and Simple Man. Gimme Three Steps is a staple of classic rock radio. The strength of these songs alone raises the bar and makes this album an all time great.

What the hell did I just listen to?!? Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band's album Trout Mask Replica isn't some avant garde experiment. It isn't anti-art music to shed light on the pretensiousness of artists of the era. It is crap. Two albums, four sides, 80 minutes of crap. It is noise. It is nonsense. It is stupid. I hated every minute of this album, and couldn't wait for it to be over. Unfortunately for me, it is a super long double album, so it felt like it took forever. I could find no redeeming feature in this utter slog of a listen. I hated myself while I was listening to it. This album doesn't take long to show how completely terrible it is. Maybe it was by the third track, a ditty about Nazi Germany's death camps. Maybe it was the five minute "instrumental" cacophony of noise on track five. Somewhere after the one hour mark, I lost all hope that I could ever hear music again. I thought I should abandon all hope and puncture my own ear drums. I actually sat down and pondered who, in the era that this crime against humanity was published, would have actually taken the time to listen to this album the whole way through side 1, then willingly flip the album over to side two and resume play, then, in some act of sheer audacity, change the record to the second disc, and listen to that entire side of music before making the concious decision that they had to flip the album over to really see how this thing ends up? That wasn't hitting play on an iPod and zoning out. This was actual effort! For this album?! I thought I liked some weird ass stuff. I read the wikipedia article where some interesting people count this album as a masterpiece. I read the opinion that after 7 listens, you really can "get" this album. I can promise you that I will NEVER EVER subject myself to this nonsense another six times to reach any understanding with this. I hated every second of the eighty minutes of this album.

This is a hard album to review. On one hand, it sounds like a Randy Newman album. If you like his musical stylings, this album is in your wheelhouse. On the other hand, it's a concept album about racist southerners told from the perspective of the racist southerner. There's not a lot of replay value to an album that begins by so casually dropping hard N words right out of the gate. Even getting what he's going for in this album, it still feels ichy. Steve Earle attempted a similar feat by recording Ghosts of West Virginia about people he didn't agree with politically. He succeeded in making an album that you don't feel the need to wash off afterwards.

It's weird to compile a list of a thousand albums. There's bound to be lots of albums that not everyone is going to like or click in with. That's how this album lands for me. This record would have never landed on my Now Playing list without this. It's not a bad listen, but it's not my wheelhouse. So I don't know how to rate this fairly. It's a 2-3 for me because I don't have the skillset for R&B msuic in general.

I had never heard of Ride before, but this album was very good. It will be a repeat listen for me.

I've been doing this album challenge for about a month now, and it was only a matter of time until I got the Beatles. Here's the thing, the Beatles are overrated. Sure they have a lot of good songs, but man, some people worship them. That that, this album has some good stuff on it. There's a ton of radio hits on this album, and some of my favorite Beatles songs on here. Buffalo Bill, Rocky Racoon, Revolution, Helter Skelter are really good. There's some real stinkers on here too, though. Some songs that are just bizarre, or long and indulgent. It makes the album too long and by the end, it was really hard not skip some of the tracks as they dragged on. Revolution 9 was over eight minutes of noise. It made an album that ballooned to 90 minutes. If they had more restraint, there could have been a better overall album.

I don't have a sophisticated palette for jazz, but I liked a lot of this album. I liked how it slid from orchestral, big band, flamenco guitar, and jazzy elements. Sometimes the sounds blended into a cacophony that sounded very much like noise. That was the point. Often times, I rate these albums by how much I enjoyed the listening experience, and I think about how much I would want to listen again. I would like to think I'd give this one a listen again.

A collection of 10 hippie folk melodramas.

This is probably the first good Chili Peppers record. It still has a lot of their funk, rap style from the 80s, but took the lineup and style from Mother's Milk, and congealed into a really solid record. The album is too long, and there's some songs that I don't love, but there's some great songs on here. Breaking the Girl, I Could Have Lied, and Under The Bridge are highlights of this record for me.

I wasn't familiar with this record prior to this listening. But I liked it a lot. It is a different style of beach boys, made evident by the first track telling us Don't Go Near the Water.

Barely a month into this album a day experiment, and I just got my second Bowie album. In my past experience, I like Bowie radio hits, but not a fan of Bowie albums. Listening through Hunky Dory didn't really change my mind. The songs here didn't really grab my attention, I found myself wandering away. Ultimately, I liked Changes, I was already familiar with that track. Queen Bitch near the end was also really good. The rest of the album was meh to ok.

Better than I expected

This generator is hammering me with Bowie lately, so I must admit I'm getting a little weary. I wrote in my review of Hunky Dory just the day before yesterday that I'm often a fan of Bowie songs,but not Bowie albums. Despite this being Bowie's magnum opus, and being the one David Bowie album I know for sure that I've listened to in the past, this album failed to convert me. This album was...fine, but I am not adding this to my regular rotation.

I know I am going against popular opinion, but Prince just isn't for me.

This album generator has been about expanding my musical horizons, but damn if I haven't had a long string of 'great' albums that I really didn't like much. Metallica's Black album is a familiar album. One I listened to many times over the years. This album was more or less my intro to Metallica, I wasn't familiar with their previous work when Enter Sandman blew up on radio and MTV when I was about 10. After familiarizing myself with everything from Kill Em All to And Justice For All, I can see how some people would find this an abrupt change to the sound of Metallica. Nevertheless, I love this album, there are so many timeless songs, from the aforementioned Enter Sandman, Whereever I May Roam, The Unforgiven Nothing Else Matters, this album is a powerful introduction to Metallica of the 90s.

The Who isn't my favorite band, but I do like a lot of their songs. It's hard not to call this a great album. I've heard over half this album just listening to local radio. Baba O'Riley, Bargain, and Won't Get Fooled Again are amongst my favorite Who tracks.

This isn't the big Sabbath album. There is no Iron Man or Paranoid on it. But it's still a solid collection of hard rock songs. Really good listen the whole way through.

I remember when the Libertines came out and were dismissed as "English Strokes". I haven't listened to this album for a bunch of years, but it was fun to revisit it. It's not may favorite, but it's OK.

This is peak Age of Acquarius hippy bullshit. It has every accouterment of the era, it has the mystical song with sitar. The only song I was familiar with was Season of the Witch. It's still pretty bad. I think Donovan realized that witch rhymes with stitch and wrote the whole song about it.

I have loved this album since I was a kid. Perfect mix of synth and rock guitar. Over half of these songs still get regular airplay on radio. There's a bar band out there right this second singing "Just What I Needed".

While soul isn't my wheelhouse, this was upbeat and uplifting. It was an enjoyable listen.

A fun and occasionally funny selection of big band style jazz standards. Sarah's voice is stellar throughout. I wish the band was a little louder in the mix.

I admittedly am not a Bowie fan. I've been doing this generator challenge for less than 2 months, and this the 4th album I've tolerated. It's also the worst. Despite this album being released very close to his death, I don't see any reason to see this as Bowie's swan song. Dollar Song near tbe end is tbe only track that even sounds introspective to me, suggesting that the author is considering his mortality. The rest of this album sounds like another stupid character that Bowie donned, as so many alter egos throughout his catalog. I do not expect to give this another go later to see if I was too harsh.. It was terrible the first time.

Loud, silly, cheesy - and fun!

I liked this album far more than I expected. I didn't like Oyo Como Ya, expecting it to be the best song on the album. Instead, it is kind of the worst. I could listen to this album in the background and enjoy it.

It has a cool vibe. But it's hard for me to be too interested in a foreign language album.

This is sort of a weird album. There are some interesting tracks. Then there's some songs that aren't really even songs. Three Great Alabama Icons was a dissertation loosely set to music about George Wallace. As a piece of art, this album is interesting and possibly has a message to tell. As a piece of music, it doesn't lend itself to repeat listens.

Document was one of the first CDs I ever bought. I thought End of the World as We Know it was such a cool song. I had no idea the rest of the record was so good until I had absorbed it all. I still love End of the World, One I Love, FInest Worksong, Oddfellows Local 151, Exhuming McCarthy...the whole album is a must listen for me.

I don't know how the Stones became considered essential classics. This album is a prime example that they don't write great albums. Beggars Banquet is not a good album. Starting with the two tracks everyone knows, street fighting man is nothing special. Sympathy for the Devil is an annoying song. It's over 6 minutes of "hoo hoo.... Hoo hoo... Hoo hoo". There are no hidden jems in the remaining album tracks. The rest are the generic and forgettable.

This album is a bloated mess. There's a couple of good songs in here. But I don't want to listen to this enough to decide which songs to cut and which to keep.

I didn't like this album much back in its day, despite several friends loved it. Listening to it today, it was better than I remembered, but that is damning with faint praise. Eminem is a brilliant rapper, and his lyrics are creative, but seriously deranged. The production is very good, but the overall package is too long, and the skits are just really bad.

A rowdy and highly entertaining live record.

Sweet Dreams is a pretty good song. The rest of the album is dreadful. Cold and repetitive.

I like the Prodigy, in that it means I like the couple of The Prodigy songs that used to be on TV or radio. None of which were on this record. But it's still the same recipe, electronic music that metal heads would dig.

I am not a regular listener to Adele, but I generally like her, or at least admire the strength of her voice when I hear her songs. This collection of songs has the vocal strength, but lacks the substance of the "hits" in her catalog. Water Under the Bridge was the only track that really stood out to me that I would want to add to my regular rotation. The rest just make me want to listen to Adele songs I already know.

According to the label and the description, this should be right in my wheelhouse. But upon listening, I am left cold.

This album is quiet, acoustic, contemplative, and very sad. The album suffers from a weird patronizing tone. Had Springsteen ever heard anyone from Nebraska talk? He sings in an accent that suggests that Nebraksa is between Alabama and Mississippi. Atlantic City and Highway Patrolman are standouts, the chorus to Atlantic City sticks in my head every time I hear it, and Highway Patrolman is probably mostly because I'm a sucker for history and Bruce sings about a song "The night of the Johnstown Flood". Open All Night suffers from the spare acoustic production. It needs the full sound of the E Street Band. Bruce sounds like he's trying to make the song sound big, but can't get there by himself. This album can sometimes fit a feel, but I often need to shower this album off after listening, and find something much less dismal.

I didn't look at what I was about to listen to, so I was expecting an album of Vietnam war movie soundtrack hippie bullshit. I was happy to find this wasn't that. And while I didn't love it, I do love some of the 90s country rock that sounds like it owes it sound to this album.

I had no idea what I was going to get with this album. This album is a whole mood. A really good listening experience. I will be revisiting this album again soon.

Third by Soft Machine is a terrible album. But at least it's really long. Track one sounds like a talented group of musicians trying to replicate the melody of a fax machine. Tracks 2 and 3 sound like a cacophony of sound that sounds like jazz, if you described jazz to someone who has never heard jazz. Track 4 sounds like something like prog, but it's still long and listless and pointless.

This album is a solid entry from the 90s. Raw, unfiltered, angry, great music.

This album...wasn't very good. It was mostly inoffensive, but its just kind of not good either. I don't need to listen to John Martyn or particularly One World again.

I accept the influence this album had on a generation of musicians, but it didn't do much for me. There are people who listen to this and hear the complex interplay and power struggle between John and Paul. I just hear an album of songs from that time when "oldies" was becoming rock and roll.

This is the Led Zeppliniest Led Zeppelin album ever! It has Stariway to Heaven! It has the most Bonzo drumming! It has all the guitars! It has Robert Plant moaning, groaning, and just sleezing all over this record! It is so mystical, it doesn't even have an album title! Zeppelin can actually be a bit of a chore for me sometimes, but this album is actually pretty good. It is remarkable how every single song on this record was on regular rotation in my city's classic rock station.

This was very fun. I wasn't familiar with these tracks, but it was an easy listen. I'd like to listen to it again.

I had no idea what this album was going to be at first, but I was surprised by this album. I knew more a bunch of the songs. There's some good stuff, but it's a little long and wears thin.

This album is loud and brash and stupid and funny and awesome. The Beastie Boys and Rick Ruben crafted a masterpiece with this one.

This album was better than I was anticipating. It was pretty interesting. Some of the tracks evoked mysterious vibes, some sounded romantic.

This album is a whole mood. I think I could rate this album higher if I was feeling the same vibe, had I gotten this album in the dead of winter perhaps.

I've loved this album for years. Girl from Mars and Goldfinger and Oh Yeah used to get radio spins, and there's a lot of charm in the album tracks as well.

Dark and mysterious. This album will scratch the itch when you're in that mood.

This album hovers between a 3 and 4 for me. The music production is good, and I can really get into it if I'm in the mood for a slow burn. The Icelandic lyrics are a challenge, especially if there's a story in there that I'm supposed to be enriched to discover.

Elvis Costello is aggressively adequate music.

Hey chat gpt, make me an album of sad sack alternative songs in the style of that song from "Frozen".

A metal band playing with a symphony orchestra could come off as gimmicky, but it works. This is an epic length album that spans Metallica's entire career to that point, enhanced with an orchestra. The symphony blends well with Metallica to form an interesting take on their 80s thrash as well as their 90s songs.

I had to listen to this album twice. The first time, I ended up listening to the album on Spotify which is a 40 song, 2 and a half hour slog. I was hating this album. Then I researched and found this album was only 11 tracks. So I went back and listened to just the 11 tracks from the original release. It was a much better experience. I was surprised to have never heard of this band or this album. It is the connective tissue between the 60s music and 80s alternative.

I liked this album in the 90s,but I've come to appreciate it so much more recently. Champagne Supernova and Wonderwall are pretty good, but Don't Look Back in Anger and Some Might Say are fantastic

Dig Your Own Hole by Chemical Brothers is cool music in small doses for me. I really like the music for a while, and I loved usage of music of this style back in the day in movie soundtracks, like the Matrix or Fight Club. I don't love it in large doses however. I could tolerate this for an hour, and I felt like the album did "land the plane" on the back half of the record.

I was thrilled to see Doolittle on this list, I've loved this album for years! I am not going to be impartial, I am giving it an easy 5 stars. This album is joyous and weird. There's moments that almost sound like different songs being played at the same time. So many albums have been inspired by the Pixies that you can hear the influences, but nothing quite sounds like Doolittle. Here Comes Your Man is still one of my favorite songs.

I don't know why I never took the time to listen to this album. I always liked Song 2, but never went further. This album was really good! I will definitely add this to my collection.

Funny thing about Bowie. I thought I kind of liked Bowie. But then this stupid album list threw SO much at me, and made me sit and listen to it. I realized I hate Bowie. The albums just aren't very good. And those were the "good albums", like Ziggy Stardust. This isn't Ziggy Stardust. This is 2013 Bowie. And we all know how great late albums from 70s rock bands are. I can't wait to see this album generator give me Aerosmith's Honkin' on Bobo, Mojo by Tom Petty, or the Rolling Stones masterwork A Bigger Bang. Point is, I guess you have to give credit to Bowie for keeping at it into the second term of the Obama administration, but I don't know anyone who is enough of a Bowie fan to call The Next Day a Great Album, an essential work that MUST be listened to in one's life, to properly enrich their understanding of popular music. I literally never heard of it until I opened this webpage this morning. I am normally a live and let live person. I have no reason to hate on music that I don't like, but damn it, this album is hot garbage. This album is artless, soulless, and toneless. It is an anachronism, an album out of time. It doesn't fit in Bowie's peak era and it definitely does not belong in the 2010s. It is generic and lifeless. It's Fat Elvis sweating through his jumpsuit at the Tropicana. Even the album cover is half-assed, phoned in, warmed up repeat of another Bowie album. I hate it. I don't want to listen to David Bowie anymore. Please, please make it stop.

I have liked the track Green Onions for as long as I can remember, it just has a cool vibe to it. The rest of the album Green Onions has a lot of the same energy. Cool, instrumental organ and guitar driven music. It's easy to listen to. I'll add this to a list of albums that I listen to when I'm reading or writing and lyrics are distracting.

It's hard to overstate how big this album was back in it's day. I liked but didn't love the White Stripes, but over time, nostalgia has snuck into the space between the notes and this album hit yard when I listened to it today.

Sometimes this album list really baffles me. At some point in trying to compile 1001 albums, does the author just run out of ideas? Does a devilish sense of humor make them try to sneak some piece of crap into the list to see if anyone notices? I ask in particular when I am struggling to get through Space Ritual by Hawkwind. I like a lot of off the wall stuff, and I generally get excited when I discover a cool band that I never heard of before. But this almost feels like a joke,but instead of just hitting it with a 1 and quitting it, I feel stuck trying to understand it. Having never heard them before, I got Black Sabbath vibes pretty much immediately from the first track. I didn't hate it, but it was hard to hear because this is a live album. That's the big problem I had this with this one. Live albums are already a bit of a tough sell. Either it is a masterfully recorded live album (like Eagles' Hell Freezes Over) or else it somehow captures of the live energy of a band in a way that a studio never can (like Grateful Dead or Phish). This album did neither. It's poorly recorded, often muddy, the lyrics sometimes indecipherable, sometimes the band skews out of key. It makes for a poor first impression of this band for me. I am wondering what their studio records sound like. I'm not sure I'm curious enough to go give it a listen. Ultimately, I am not leaving here a fan of Hawkwind (that's a dumb band name, btw), and truly wondering why this album merited a position on this list.

The Doors LA Woman is obviously a classic. I've heard half of this album just listening to the radio throughout the years. LA Woman, Love Her Madly, The WASP, and Riders on the Storm all got very frequent rotation on WDVE. The musicianship is generally pretty excellent, I am especially a fan of Ray Manzarak's keys work. Jim Morrison is kind of the weak point of the band, in my opinion. He's supposed to be the charismatic lead singer, but often times, his growl makes him sound like a Muppet as he whiskey-slurs some of the vocals. Riders on the Storm gets a special shoutout for me, because it delivers a whole mood.

I have liked Rage, but never loved them. They were great on the radio, but listening to an entire album in a sitting was always a fatiguing affair for me. There are amazing tracks on this album, but it starts to wear thin after some amount of time. The naked political protest themes tire me out. Morello's excellent guitar play starts to lose it's novelty. De La Rocha's vocals grate by the end of the record. All of that said, this album still goes hard. There's a lot of good stuff there...I just need to space it all out a little bit.

I do not like Neil Young on a good day. I have a hard time getting through his classics. That makes this album a really tough venture. This album sounds very much like Neil and a bunch of guys got together on a Saturday afternoon in a garage, started hammering beers and noodling around with instruments and turned it into an album. Nothing within this album is a "classic" or even worthy of a repeated listen. It is just a collection of tracks that are OK, but terribly forgettable.

This is really not my wheelhouse. It was OK.

This is probably my second favorite Beck album. His 90s albums are probably more groundbreaking, but I find myself preferring Girl to Loser most of the time these days.

It's hard to rate an album that is really out of my wheelhouse, but this was very difficult to listen to. I hated this album like 30 seconds into it. I generally don't love early 80s synthpop, but this album is especially bad at it. It's actively annoying and repetitive, and generally not mixed well. I really don't find this album to be vital or important enough to be included in a list of 1000 albums that one must listen to before they die.

This is classic Metallica. This is the album that has One, which may be Metallica's best song. I feel like this one suffers a little bit being in the shadow of Master of Puppets. It would also sound better if they hadn't mixed the bass out.

At first glance, this is typical Lou Reed. I kind of zoned out on the lyrics, and this could have been any Reed or VU song. After I started to pay attention to to lyrics, I paused and did the wiki overview of the album. This album is probably of some influence to one of my favorite albums, Tallahassee by the Mountain Goats. Comparing the two, I think Tallahassee is still much better (I'd rank it a 5 if the authors of this list had included the Mountain Goats, they really should have). But this album had to pave the road for that one. The lyrical content is very dark, it makes this an album you don't went to visit often. Whether you love or hate this album will depend on your tolerance for that misery, but also your interest in Lou Reed. His standard talk-sing style is in full swing here. But it works with the songs. This album could be a 5 on influence alone. I here little parts of songs that came later all over this record. But based on my enjoyment of this album, I give it a 3. I'll split the diff and call it 4.

I didn't have a 2006 Christina Aguilera double album on my bingo card this morning, but here we are. I think Christina has an amazing voice. It's strong and confident, and she has the ability to modulate it to convey many different styles. Ultimately though this album isn't my style, and I am not particularly interested in repeat listens.

I can understand the people who love The Eagles as well as those who hate them. They were the masters of their particular brand of Laurel Canyon country-rock in the 70s. However, they all earned their reputation for being coked out, thin skinned, vindictive assholes. Regardless of their personality defects, this album is a high point of its era. Nearly every song on this album receives regular radio play. Hotel California and Life in the Fast Lane are considered the high points of this album, but I'd put them low on my list after Pretty Maids, Victim of Love, New Kid in Town, Last Resort. There is a melancholy behind all of the sun-soaked-LA sheen they are trying to sell.

This was a really good album. It is a mix of fun, sometimes even goofy elements of old school 808 drums and MIDI sounds and some serious lyrical content. It can be a little silly, and it's probably a few tracks too long, but I enjoyed this album

I tried listening to Aja one time and hated it. So I didn't think I was about to like this album. Maybe it hit me on just the right day. I was already familiar with Dirty Work, Reelin in the Years, and Do It Again from the radio. This album was easy to listen to, and while it won't be my favorite album, I really didn't mind it too much.

Pyromania is where Def Leopard started their rise that would peak with Hysteria. Lots of radio hits here.

This album is mellow, but difficult to listen to. The music and vocal deliveries create a tension that put me on edge while listening to it. It turned a 45 minute record into something that felt longer.

I can't tell if this a bad good album, or if it is a good bad album. But it is obnoxious, silly, loud, and a ton of fun. I remember how over the top the video was for I Believe In A Thing Called Love. It rode the razors edge of glam metal revival and outright parody. The rest of the album plays largely the same way, being over the top, but that is the point. I'd rank this a 3 or 4 depending on my mood. The schtick can wear thin over time, but it's listenable, and clearly does not take itself too seriously.

What a drag it is getting old. This album is old and worn out, like the Stones themselves.

This album is an anonymous hour of turn-of-the-millennium electronic music. This was probably used to sell Mitsubishis in the first George W presidency. It was OK, but just OK. I don't think it is a "must listen" album.

Traffic is a weird band, I've listened to a lot of their music over the years, my local classic rock station LOVED Traffic, I don't think there could be a public radio station in the world that played more Traffic than WDVE-FM Pittsburgh. Despite that, I had never heard anything from the album Traffic until today. The first few tracks on the album had a vaguely "70s Southern Rock" vibe to them, and I was surprised to find out that "Feelin' Alright" was written and originally performed by Traffic. By the back half of the album, the songs were the standard Traffic sound, vaguely jazzy, almost a prog sound in there. Ultimately, this album felt very long, and I just didn't find much to engage with on this record. It turns out, I don't love Traffic.

This doesn't have the big hits of the Clash on it, but this record is the fully formed sound of the band..even if you aren't a big fan, this isn't the Clash you know, but you know it's the Clash.

I kind of didn't know who the Psychedelic Furs were when I stated to listen to this record. I was sort of afraid this was going to be another difficult early 80s English new wave garbage with moody lyrics over atonal synths. So this album came as a pleasant surprise. I'd be interested in hearing more from them at this point.

I'm not a big fan of Jimi Hendrix. I hear the enormous talent, but I don't love how music usually. This album really threw me for a loop. It was a really good listen. I really enjoyed the presentation. The songs are short, so the album doesn't feel like a slog to get through. And I enjoyed the studio effects of hard panning Jimi's vocals to one side on a few tracks.

Sweet Emotion and Walk this Way are bangers. There's a reason they are on so many soundtracks and still get regular radio play. The album tracks on this album are bland, boring, and weird. Aerosmith is one of those bands where the Greatest Hits album can be a good time, but the albums are a hard pass.

G Love is a sort of fusion of hippy jam band music, jazz, funk, hip hop and more. My girlfriend really likes My Baby Got Sauce so it has a soft spot for me. This album is a bit all over the place, and I'd probably rate it a 2. But I saw G Love a few summers ago open for OAR and Dispatch. It was a ton of fun, and he was good live.

My sister had this album on cassette when I was a kid, but this was never really my bag. But giving this album an honest listen today and I was happily surprised by now good it was. This album has so many hits on it, and Time After Time is an all-timer.

I didn't have high expectations for an entire album of Crowded House music, when it didn't even include "Don't Dream it's Over". This album was mostly a pretty solid listen, and I was surprised to know I knew a few of the tracks on the album. I mostly liked this album. The only track that I absolutely hated was "All I Ask". The song sounded like a very schmaltzy Christmas song. I will skip the track on any future listens to this record.

The wiki entry for album mentions that this record is supposed to channel the pop synth sounds of the 80s. I don't hear any of that, this is all 2010s pop. This is the quintessential pop sound of the 2010s, built from the Swedish masterminds of the maximum pop sound. Taylor Swift is one of the biggest names in music in the last decade and a half, and this album shows why. The music is bright, loud, and easily accessible.

I was familiar with Graceland (the song) and You Can Call Me Al, but I am pretty sure I had never heard this album before. There is a lot of 80s we are the world vibe to it that.owes to its era. The album is catchy, but sometimes it feels a little forced as well. Overall, it's not a hard album to listen to, and I'd consider it re-listenable.

I generally don't like the music of the hippie era and all the age of aquarius nonsense. So when I realized that's what this album was, I settled in for a slog of a listen.. But I am happy to say this album wasn't terrible It isn't going into regular rotation for me, but it's lacks some of the self righteousness and melodrama of other hippie music.

If Bjork catches you in the right mood, this album can really hit me. It did today when I listened to it. This album is pretty out there from the norm, but that's part of the magic.

There are some interesting melodies here, but none of it sticks with me because of the cold calculated tone of the songs. It wasn't a terrible listen, but it isn't something I'm. Interested in revisiting.

I like the Who, but this album isn't great. It comes from too early in their career for some of their cool later material, and the audio quality is ok, but not great. It doesn't make for essential listening.

Today's adventure in the 1001 albums generator is The Incredible Bongo Band. Now, this is on me. I like to go into these albums cold, generally without reading any information on them. To be honest, I glanced down at my phone to queue this album as I was walking to my car. I actually thought it said Oingo Boingo. I was somewhat surprised when I started my car and got an instrucmental version of Apache. And the album "Bongo Rock"...I mean, it's pretty much what it says on the tin. It's an album of bongo heavy rock. At some point, what level of insanity does a person slide into when tasked to write a book of one thousand albums that are required listening? It's impossible not to have your biases shine through. All of the early 80s English synth-pop. There's six Rolling Stones records, another five from Bruce Springsteen. Dylan has 7 albums recognized. There's NINE David Bowie records. NINE, Bob. Nine. Not for a list of Essential David Bowie records for hardcore David Bowie fans, but for a list of essential albums for EVERYONE to listen to before they die. Worse than over-represntation on this list is the under-representation. There's no Warren Zevon, Tool, Weezer, Deftones, Mountain Goats to name a few. In general, there is a lack of representation in metal, punk and alternative music. I begin to wonder why I took on this Sisyphean task of listening to these albums, and preparing reviews every day. What's the point of digging if it will be yet another Elvis Costello album? Or some utter nonsense like Captain Beefheart?? Anyway, this album is...fine. It has bongos and shit.

If you strip away the spectacle of the Wall live shows performed by Pink Floyd or later by Roger Waters, take away the freaky visuals of the movie, this all began live as a piece of musical work. This is certainly Pink Floyd's magnum opus. A long double album concept. You've heard Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 a hundred or a thousand times on your local classic rock station and it feels a little overdone at this point. But if you take the time to listen to this album cover to cover, it is still a powerful message of isolation and grief. Even if it's told through the eyes of a mostly unpleasant Roger Waters, the story still has emotional weight. The strongest part of this album is the music, it's a rock opera that makes effective use of the musical motifs, introducing and calling back to them several times. Most notably is In the Flesh? opening the album and then reprising on the expanded In The Flesh on side 4. At 80 minutes, it is a long album to experience, but I think it is worth it. This album is still undeniably a classic.

A mostly musical album of pretty chill music. Is this supposed to be what stoners listen to? I thought they put on live tracks of the Dead... This isn't hard to listen to, but it wasn't thrilling enough for repeated listens.

This feels like the connective tissue between new wave and early alternative, with some punk mixed in. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either.

The Police aren't my favorite bands. Sting's delivery is a little grating for me, and the tepid mix of reggae leaves me uninterested. This album has a lot of their hits though, the radio singles are all fine. The album tracks vary from meh to ugh.

This album fooled me into thinking it may be a little country rock, but I quickly realized that this was sort of a meh 80s britpop thing. This album is fine. It's just a little boring. It's store brand cola. It technically serves it purpose, but you know that it isn't Coca Cola while you're drinking it. My soda analogy is more interesting than any part of this album.

I liked a few songs off this album without ever taking the time to try the whole album, but I should have. This album is just solid 90s alt. Loud fuzzy guitars, hidden in the mix vocals.

I am the least funky human being on the planet, but I enjoyed this record. I feel like this is the platonic ideal of a funk record. Even if this isn't your style, as it wasn't mine, it's upbeat and it moves quickly.

I had this album from back in the day. I really like it. Slow, and something of a downer, but sometimes that's what you're looking for.

I don't listen to Motorhead much, but this is a great package that has all the songs I want, like a greatest hits compilation. The live mix compresses the sound and makes it seem a little flat to me. I'd rather listen to the studio versions.

A good mix of styles. Country, Americana, bluegrass. It's great background music at an outdoor bar on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

This is the first version of blues and rock n roll.

Mariah Carey has a great voice, but these are not great songs. They're pretty crummy and she is often not even singing, but sort of screeching over some generic sounding pop.

This is really generic hippie music.

I went through a Smiths phase where their sad music clicked with me. It made me look forward to my next breakup, so I'd have just the right forlorn music to get me through. That phase has pretty much gone. I don't hate this, but I didn't really connect with this morose lyrics. The guitar and bass in particular carry much of this album. I was ready to give the album a solid 3 stars. Then I heard the title Track. It is terrible self righteous garbage. Morrissey has created more suffering than all of the slaughterhouses in Europe.

This sounds like something you'd hear in a Tarintino film, it has that mix of old and cool that fits movie asthetic. The music is interesting to listen to, but I have no idea what the lyrics are doing. It was a decent listen. But I probably won't be back.

This was an album I'd never heard before, but I'm glad this list brought to my attention. Elements of punk, hard rock, metal and more converge with strong vocals.

This album is a treasure! It has some Beach Boys elements, a wide variety of other influences, a healthy dose of melancholy, and a gritty weariness. I really liked it.

I know the mythology of Exile, the band holed up in their tax exile, working out songs until they thought they were perfect and the hitting record. But to my ears, these songs sound like a band white knuckling these tracks by the very edges of their fingernails. There's Tumbling Dice, which is my single favorite Stones song, and it's brilliant. But for every spark, there's a Turd On The Run to counter. The album bounces through 18 tracks that vary wildly in sound, style and quality. This isn't my first time giving this album a listen, but I find myself repeating the sentiment that this album does not live up to the hype. Exile on Main St is one of those albums that is consistently on the list of all time great albums, but I continue to not hear it. I think the rolling stones are a band that makes great singles (by virtue of releasing so many albums), but middling albums. Exile is no exception to that rule.

This album is exactly what the label says! Light and breeze, like a warm sunny day. It sounds like something you'd hear on an episode of Mad Man. It's cool, and timeless.

Let me start at the end by saying that Automatic For the People is one of my favorite albums, it's one of the all-time great albums. It's an easy 5 star. This is a Southern Gothic masterpiece in musical form. The songs are often melancholic moody songs, but I don't want to stop listening to them. Man on the Moon, Sidewinder, Drive, Nightswimming, Everybody Hurts are just all of them great songs. Man on the Moon, Nightswimming, and Find the River make an amazing three song punch to close this record.

After listening to The Band by the band The Band, I liked the two songs I already knew and the rest of the album was middling to blah. Cripple Creek and Night They Drove Dixie Down aren't fives. They may be fours. They're pretty good. Although, I didn't think either of these songs were by the band The Band. Had I been trying to name the band in trivia, I would have guessed someone else for both. The rest of the album is a mix of 2s and 3s. Very little stood out, and I was getting worn of it until it finally ended. Reading info about this album, it's often called Americana. It feels Southern at times to me, other times Western, but not authentically either. It feels like a teenager half heartedly dressing in a cowboy hat and fake tanned leather vest and plastic sheriff badge for a job at an amusement park that he doesn't care about. The band The Band is considered to be an extremely talented group of artists, but I feel like it is a little bit of a miss, the style is a bit sloppy by design, so their talent feels a little wasted. It's like asking Picasso to paint your shed.

This doesn't quite rise to the level of their later albums, but Murmur is a great album. It's a shock that it's as well polished as it, REM was fully formed on their debut album.

When the lyrics are in a language I don't speak, the music has to carry all of the weight of this album. And the music is pretty cool. It's loud and bright and exciting...for a while. It's bound to get a little repetitive when the album runtime is one hour, and there's only 5 tracks. The songs stretch their legs, but sometimes, even interesting hooks lose their excitement when they come back around for the 4th and 5th times.

Talking Head's Remain in Light is kind of funky, sometimes a little weird, and sometimes it's a lot of fun. It's never boring. It's not my favorite Talking Heads album, but it's still really good.

After getting through a couple of Rolling Stones albums and giving them pretty low marks, I have to say this one wasn't bad. I certainly recognized more of this album than I thought. It has Brown Sugar. It was the song from all the Scorcese movies. It has the song from The Big Lebowski on it! Dead Flowers and Wild Horses are probably among the few Rolling Stones songs I actually really like, so this was pretty good.

Man, I've tried with Zappa. This is my first attempt with Hot Rats though. It wasn't the worst, but I really didn't like it. It is just so much. It's a racket of cacophony. It doesn't ever really land into something coherent to me. I guess it is just not my style.

I knew exactly what this album would sound like before I put it on. Pleasant enough sounding proto-rock and roll with some flower power mixed in. Monday Monday and California Dreamin' are still as recognizable and earwormy, some 60 years after they were released. Some of the rest of the album is an archaic look at a bygone era.