As a hardcore Bowie fan, I've always found this to be his most overrated album. With the exception of "Life On Mars?" this mostly feels schmaltzy and inauthentic, like Bowie doesn't know if he wants to be Elton John, Bob Dylan, or Lou Reed, and settles for an uninteresting combination of the three. The strings bring a sense of cheesiness to most of the songs that they're on, and others like "Fill Your Heart" are just bad on their own. This is one of the few Bowie albums I don't own, and I don't think I'll ever buy a copy. It makes sense that the one other album where he takes a similar approach, 1999's 'hours...', is another one of my least favorites of his. If this were another band it would be one of their better albums, but I expect more from Bowie.
Murmur Is an album that I've really familiarized myself with over the last couple of years due to seeing Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy performing it live a couple of years ago in San Francisco. It has one foot firmly planted in the post-punk movement and another one planted in jungle pop and because of that It ends up sounding like something completely unique. It doesn't have the coldness generally associated with post-punk But it isn't as poppy and catchy as something like The Smiths or mid-80s Echo and the Bunnymen. It's something truly unique, the kind of album that most other bands wish they could make.
Of all of the albums by Stevie Wonder from the 1970s that I've heard, this is the one that is most consistently very good but never breaks into truly great territory. Which isn't to say that it's a bad album, it certainly is very good, but there's no specific song on here that I think outdoes any of the others. It's an incredibly consistent listen and I love when Stevie goes into full funk mode, but I was still left wishing that there was more excellence on display here.
I'm sure that this album was revolutionary and a breath of fresh air when it came out, but it's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of somebody who hasn't been exposed to this kind of music before. There are definitely other albums where I can listen to it and hear how revolutionary and ahead of its time and cutting edge they were, but I just can't with this one. As it is, the songs are mostly good but there's nothing here that sticks with me once the album has finished.
I'm so glad to finally be given an album that wouldn't necessarily be viewed as part of the traditional Canon of popular music. And gosh, what an album this is. Kelela's voice is smooth and demanding throughout this album, and it pairs with the sometimes avant-garde production perfectly. While the album does go on a little bit too long for my taste, it's an incredibly enjoyable experience and an album that I probably wouldn't have heard had it not been for this list.
Yeah, the vocal harmonies are sometimes amazing, but I can't imagine anyone finding any of the songs here exciting or even interesting. It's just middle of the road dad rock of the blandest variety.
I feel the same way about this album as I do so many other prog albums: yes, the playing is technically on another level, but there's no emotion here.
Just a solid country album. I was familiar with the title track but the entire record had me engaged and smiling ear to ear. I wish that there was a bit more meat to chew on with this record, as it lacks emotional depth, but as a surface-level piece of art it's good!
I feel the same way about this album now as I did the first time I heard it a couple of months ago: pretty solid funk album, has some amazing covers on it that the band makes their own, and the musicianship on display is impressive throughout. Truly a great album.
Another joyous and jubilant funk album. This is the kind that you put on and it immediately makes a smile go across your face. Earth, Wind & Fire reach beyond the boundaries of pure funk on this album and sometimes are able to go straight into more progressive territories with an ease that should be marveled at. It's a fantastic record.
Even though Bob Dylan would release more albums in the 1960s, Blonde On Blonde feels like the culmination of everything that he was working towards in that decade. There's the bombast and electricity of Highway 61 Revisited, the stripped back material you would find on Another Side Of Bob Dylan, and songs that sound like combinations of the two. About sixteen years ago I went on a pretty hardcore. Bob Dylan kick and this was an album of his that always stuck out to me, the double album that doesn't feel like a double album. Every song seems perfectly constructed and in its right place, and there's not a bad moment on here, with Dylan's lyrics arguably at their peak on this record. It's a masterpiece.
I saw a lot of reviews referring to this album as background music, but I think to do that would be to dismiss the artistry and musicianship on display here. Each song has its own unique flavor and style and there's enough variation that goes on not just over the track listing, but on each individual's song that I think warrants attention. Honestly, I'm glad that this list introduced me to this album, even if I expected the music contained within to be a bit more intense based on the name Nightmares On Wax.
This kind of album is the template for pretty much all of the Jazz fusion that came afterwards. The music that Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Donald Byrd, and other such musicians at the time were making still has relevancy and still sounds exciting over fifty years later. There are only four songs here, but each one has its own unique flavor and style. I never get tired of listening to this one.
If there's one thing I've learned about my own taste recently, it's that I don't like contemporary R&B all that much, case in point here. The instrumentation tends to be pretty great throughout the songs, but none of them deserve to be as long as they are and while D'Angelo has a great voice it's wasted on some truly insipid lyrics on here. The song "Cruisin'" should be an all time classic, bit it's let down by everything wrong about this album.
I prefer earlier Aerosmith when they were still leaning into their blues influences. As it is, this album is absolutely fine, and has a few of the band's biggest hits, songs that I've heard a million times in various contexts. This isn't my favorite Aerosmith album, but it's as solid as an album like this can be.
The Stone Roses are a band that I should fully love. They're they're jangle pop influences are present on nearly all of their songs, but despite most of their music sounding good, there are just too many songs on here that I can't fully get on board with. Not horrible, not even bad, but there's just something holding them back for me.
When I discovered this album in 2009 it felt like a revelation at the time for me. There were periods where I would listen to it, not just multiple times a week, but multiple times a day. It's arguably, the single most beautiful album I've ever heard, with some songs sounding spacey and like they're floating on the beautiful strings that make up the instrumentation, and other songs are relentlessly dense and claustrophobic, creating a sense of dread that is always overtaken by the beauty of the rest of the music before too long. It's always a treat when one of these lists throws in a curveball of an album that I already have such a strong emotional attachment to, and that is definitely the case with this record.
I've always felt that this album is just as important to the post-punk genre as something like Unknown Pleasures, but instead of the tight instrumentation and songs found on that record, here the songs are seemingly infinitely expanding outward and have a controlled aimlessness to them. That might not be everyone's cup of tea, but for me this style of post-punk hasn't been bettered than it was on here. A phenomenal and important record for the genre.
Here Roxy Music is still a bit rough around the edges and have more of the looseness that made their first album such a joy. This is my preferred version of the band, before Bryan Ferry turned the band into a lifeless polished shell of their former self for him to croon nonsense over. Here the band still does the occasional freakout, and they show they can make a dark or atmospheric song as good as anyone else. I wish they had continued on in this style forever.
Continued proof to me that The Rolling Stones have never made an album that's enjoyable from start to finish. There are a couple of good moments here, sure, but they're just that: moments that exist between some of the most hollow fake swagger I':be ever heard put to tape. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" has a killer riff, but everything else on here is skippable.
When this album came out in 2004 I was obsessed with it, and even though I hadn't listened to it in years nearly all of the songs came back to me once I put this album on. The band is definitely indebted to the 1970s and the music that came out of it: there are elements of disco, funk, glam, even Italo-disco, but they blend it all together in a truly unique sound that hasn't been done this well since. The album definitely dips in the middle, with the more Ana Matronic-heavy songs being the weak link here, but damn does Jake Shears have an amazing voice that truly elevates the rest of the songs. It's interesting to look back and realize that so many of the bands that I was listening to around this time were priming me for where my future music tastes would go (Scissor Sisters, The Darkness, Franz Ferdinand, etc.).
While I think that Laibach's shtick has gotten a bit tiring and formulaic over the years, this album still sounds fresh nearly forty years later. The layers of the various interpretations that are found on this album of both military and pop music makes this album stick out from the rest of the burgeoning industrial records that were coming out at the time. There's a simplicity to the arrangements that gives each song here a unique sound, and this is an album I can see myself revisiting many times.
It's a Ray Charles album. I'm not really sure what else to say here! His songwriting is good and his voice is distinguishable, but at the end of the day this isn't my preferred kind of music.
When I was growing up I never much paid attention to the pop singers of the day, but I was always aware of how great Christina Aguilera's voice was. Listening to this album just cemented that fact for me. The album does go on for a bit too long, but it really doesn't feel like it has twenty songs on it by the time it's over. Just a solid pop album that doesn't have that many memorable songs, but it still sound great.
An album perfectly suited for that insufferable dork you knew in high school who wanted to get a mustache tattooed on the inside of their index finger. What is this album even doing here? There are two good songs and the rest is the worst kind of 2000s-era pop rock.
This album took a few songs for me to get onto the same wavelength that it operates on. The first couple of songs just sound pretty goofy and John Prine's voice takes a bit of time to get used to, to the point where I finally realized that my aversion to it is probably how most people consider Bob Dylan's voice to sound. But as the album went on I warmed up to Prine's voice and lyrics, but I didn't end up fully loving it.
What kind of bullshit incel music is this and who is it for? A singer who can't sing and a band who can't play their instruments. This is one of the most incel-core records I've ever heard sung by one of the most insufferable voices I think I'll ever hear in my lifetime. Easily one of the worst albums I've ever heard in my life.
This album is what happens when the only Beatles songs that you know are the George Harrison ones made between 1966 and 1967. Besides the first song, everything on here is just mumbo jumbo garbage. If you're going to put the word incredible in your band name then you had better back it up, and this band does nothing incredible. Just a waste of time, and an album that I couldn't recommend to anybody.
An incredibly fun and funky record. There were so many moments while I was listening to this where I had a smile plaster to my face because of what I was hearing. Thundercat is not only a phenomenal bassist but a fantastic composer, with even the incredibly short songs on here sounding essential.
Despite the fact that I went through a pretty intense phase a few years ago where I listened to maybe hundreds of records released by Blue Note, I never listened to this one. Which is a shame, because it's some of the best smooth vocal jazz I've ever heard in my life. Norah Jones doesn't just have a fantastic and smooth voice, but her band is on a whole different level. The arrangements are sharp, the delivery is soulful, and the entire record is a treat to listen to.
Just some stereotypical rock-infused country. I've heard better albums by Lucinda Williams. At some points on here. Her voice reminded me of a cartoon character, but I forget which character it was and I don't want to listen to this album again to make myself remember.
It's so easy to hear why this was the cultural juggernaut that it was: yes, the songs are insanely catchy but there's also an emotional depth to them that tends to be missing from most popular music. The vocals are delivered with a bite to them that matches the general vibe of the lyrics, and the distorted guitars and trip hop-adjacent percussion just accentuates the overall mood that Morissette is trying to convey with her words. Fantastic stuff.
Talking Heads are one of my favorite bands, but despite that I hadn't actually sat down and listened to this album in a long time. Listening to it now, it's interesting to hear just how stripped back and live. This album feels, especially when compared to where the band would go in just a matter of a couple of albums. You can tell that these songs were mostly composed as a three-piece, with Jerry Harrison just adding additional flourishes here and there while most of the guitar work is handled solely by David Byrne. It doesn't reach the emotional highs that some of their later albums would, but there are some classics on here and I would argue that it's impossible to not tap your feet or have a smile on your face for a good stretch of this record. It's an essential listen for fans of post-punk, new wave, or those interested in the New York Punk scene of the mid to late '70s.
An album that I go out of my way to listen to already, this was just another excuse to hear it. A record that I never get tired of putting on, it shows Blur at the height of their powers but starting to experiment with various styles of songwriting, with Graham Coxon's guitar work branching into different territories that he would further develop as the band went on. Everyone in the band is at the top of their game, with Damon Albarn sounding aggressively British in a way that I love. One of the best albums of the 1990s and one that still sounds fresh.
Middle of the road dad-flavored buttrock that has some good riffs now and then, but very little of it is interesting to me in any way. I know that I'd heard this album before and it left just as little of an impression on me this time around as it did when I first heard it. I have no idea what it is about this album that makes it so essential to listen to.
One of Elvis Costello's most kaleidoscopic albums, here he and The Attractions play with so many different styles and musical instruments that it's a miracle that the album sounds as cohesive and fluid as it does. While this might not be my favorite album by Costello, it was a turning point in his career that helped establish him as a truly serious and mature artist, and it's a joy to listen to.
Despite the fact that I grew up loving and essentially worshipping The Beatles, I couldn't tell you the last time that I actually listened to this album from front to back. If you had asked me to list my favorite albums by the band, I don't even know where this one would have ended up, but after listening to it again, I can confidently say that this is one of my favorite albums by the band. I know that there's a big argument to be made about whether or not this could have been trimmed down to a single album and what could have theoretically been cut, but listening to it with fresh ears this time around I couldn't help but think that every song here feels essential, even the ones that typically get dragged through the mud on a regular basis. I also couldn't help but notice just how strong the second disc is, and how it might be better than the first, a rarity for a double album. But damn, The Beatles did it.
While this is a big step down from Cohen's debut, it's still pretty damn good. It's darker and starker than the album before it, the lyrics more searching in their themes of religion and trying to find your place in it. It isn't a Leonard Cohen album that I find myself revisiting often, but it's still a strong one in his discography.
The first two albums by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were pretty good, but this is where they knocked it out of the park. There's a cohesion to this record that's sorely lacking from their others (especially the ones after this one), and it feels like all three members were at the top of their game here. Despite the fact that it was released in 2009, I still see this as one of the defining albums of the 2000s, and the best album to come out of the boom of New York bands from that decade.
A pretty useless collection of songs that all sound like the singer is doing a piss pops Bowie impression. The music itself sound derivative of New York Dolls mixed with (you guessed it!) Bowie, and the whole thing comes off feeling soulless and without a distinct personality of its own.
One of the best albums by the greatest hip hop act of all time. Chuck D has always been my single favorite rapper, both because of his demanding voice but also his flow is practically unmatched. Flavor Flav might be considered a joke nowadays but he's the perfect loose hype man to Chuck D's more serious presentation. An album that's still just as relevant today as it was when it was first released.
I hadn't heard much of anything by 2pac until recently, including this album. And what can I say about it that I'm sure hasn't been said by millions already? It's deep, it's searching, it's profound. Easily one of the best hip hop albums of the 90s and his talent is on display on every song.
The album where Madonna showed the world that she was a serious artist who was in it for the long run. While it isn't as catchy as her first couple of albums it still has some genuinely huge songs on it, and I enjoy the more personal lyrics on this record, as depressing and shocking as they sometimes are. Not my favorite Madonna album, but still a damn good one.
I'll be honest here: I never got the hype behind this album. Yeah, it's arguably the first true prog rock album, but that doesn't automatically make it great. As it is, two monumental songs bookend an album that is full of meandering and aimless songs in the middle of it. Personally, if I'm going to listen to a King Crimson album it's going to be one of the three of their 80s albums with Adrian Belew as the frontman.
An absolute embarrassment of an album. I have no idea who this is even for, outside of maybe the most nerdy of Tolkein fans. Queen was always a singles band, and even then their singles weren't ever that great, but to hear a whole album of guitar wailing and songs that go nowhere, all the while Freddie Mercury belts out about ogre battles and queens is enough to make me want to kill myself. God awful.
One of the most aggressive and confrontational albums ever made. The Birthday Party would record two EPs after this that we're both excellent, but both still feel like a comedown from this album, a testament to why they were such a dangerous and vital band. Every member here is displaying what it is that makes them so great, and Nick Cave is arguably at his best here. I know that this isn't an album for everyone, but for me it's essential listening. Easily one of my favorite albums of all time.
This album would be certified a classic based on the title track alone, a song that has arguably the single greatest vocal take in history. But the rest of the album is nearly just as strong, with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel singing about life through the eyes of various characters, or the struggles of living in New York. It's a shame that this would be the duo's last album, but they truly go out on a high note here.
I'm usually not a big fan of psychedelic folk albums, But there's something about Donovan's delivery here that really endeared me to this album. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece by any money onions, but it's one of those records that I don't think I would have come to on my own and so I'm glad that it's on this list.
Mostly just fine. I think that these songs live and die based on who's featured on them, and so when it works it works, but sometimes it gets pretty abysmal. I actually found the songs that are instrumental to be my favorites on here.
I have no idea why this band became as popular as they did, Because after listening to this I can honestly say that there's nothing that makes them stand out from nearly every other wannabe pop punk band of the era that was trying to ride the coattails of Green Day's success. There are a couple of songs on this album that stick out for sounding different than the rest, but the singer's voice is just so grating that it ruins pretty much every song.
The title of this album pretty much sums up what it is that you're listening to, which is the confirmation of cool jazz as one of the premier forms of the genre. This isn't my favorite era of Miles Davis, but it's interesting to hear him so early into his career before he started branching out into more experimental areas and trying to redefine what jazz is.
Who is this album even for? I can't imagine a single person going out of their way to listen to this and enjoy it. The songs and compositions are nothing to write home about, but the most egregious part is the singer. The guy sounds like if Randy Newman was fronting an alt band, and it's unintentionally hilarious at parts.
A joyous synth pop album from the 2010s sung in French? Sign me up. There's lots of variety here, and I just couldn't imagine anyone having a bad time while this record is on.
I know that I'm supposed to feel something when I listen to this album, but I just don't feel anything. I even remember when this record came out and the singles and music videos were everywhere, and even then I just didn't understand the appeal of Amy Winehouse. I feel like the reputation of this album has only grown stronger since her passing, and I hate to say this, But just because somebody dies doesn't automatically make their art any better.
This is a fine samba-infused jazz album, but I'm failing to hear what makes it so remarkable. It's just alright.
Dear god. Needlessly longer than it needs to be, to the point where it could have been a quarter of its current length and it would have been just as good. The lyrics are cute and Ella Fitzgerald sounds fantastic as expected, but damn... it's just too long.
This is like if the most uninteresting bar band you ever heard decided to try their hand at prog rock one day. Just bland and direction less all around, to the point where I can't even tell what the band's intention was here.
I don't know what I could possibly say about this album that hasn't already been said. It's easily Stevie Wonder's magnum opus, with nearly every song being a classic. There are clever stylistic shifts and genre changes throughout, but Stevie always keeps the funk grooving as the album keeps going. This is the kind of record that makes you glad that music as an art form exists.
Just a solid electronic album. I don't have much substantial to say here other than I was grooving to this one pretty hard while working. I'm honestly surprised that I had never heard this one before.
