1001 Albums Summary

One of my favourite REM albums, albeit still with a couple of lower points: The vocal on sidewinder is so high in stipe’s range that I think it gets grating, and ignoreland is just a skipper. Overall though, some brilliant songs and arrangements, and a good mix of acoustic feel and expansive strings. And Drive is a cracking album opener.

High 2. Listened with a bleach / mother love bone hat on and found it patchily good E.g. think Would? is great, a classic of its genre. Overall too many uninteresting, self-indulgent songs though.

Magnificent

Enjoyed this, particularly the slightly surprising (to me) quality of their bluesy singing. But don’t feel that compelled to return.

Decent enough opener but the rest was tedious

Scraped a 2 as thought Let me roll it was ok and quite liked some of the abbey road/white album touches in the BOTR song. 1985 also good. Otherwise, pretty awful, and at times cringe-inducing.

Loved the song variety, authentic performance and amazing virtuosity from start to finish.

Listened once and glad when it was over. Was between 5 and 15 songs I think.

Like his voice and front-man energy. Found Geno and There There stand-out tracks and the rest all listenable enough if unmemorable.

Some great musicianship but too many uninteresting stretches and too long.

Magic

Some decent pop singles and harmonies, but a lot of dull filler.

Can’t fault the ambition and flamboyance of it, but I just didn’t like the songs underneath all the razzmatazz.

Found it fairly tedious and self-indulgent.

Just awful.

I like a lot of the songwriting and production/ instrumentation, even if his lyrics can be a bit earnest. Found probably the two biggest singles (Wild World and Father/Son) to be amongst the least interesting songs.

Massively surpassed (admittedly low) expectations. So many wonderful moments - found it a pretty joyful listen that I’m glad I’ve had (even if some of the keyboard touches sound a little cheesy/dated).

An essential listen as a historical/ cultural artefact but I just didn’t find a lot of these versions/his delivery an enjoyable enough listen for a 4 or 5.

Not many albums have such authentic poignancy throughout, and it has some totally brilliant / devastating covers, alongside a couple of take-or-leave ones.

Joyous virtuosity

A most enjoyable ride

A wonderful opener in Tiny Dancer which is Elton at his best in my view. The rest of the album is listenable enough but pretty forgettable and at times feels like tiny dancer by numbers.

Some inventive and fun parts but mostly couldn’t connect with this and found it pretty samey and boring overall.

Derivative and a bit basic for sure, but captured and shaped a zeitgeist in 90s Britain, and still holds up well for me in terms of melodic rock songwriting and its ‘as-live’ energy.

Accomplished but weirdly sterile.

Just not for me

Wanted to find this great but found it good and couldn’t quite connect with a lot of it. Brilliant production and musical craft outweighed much of the actual underlying songwriting for me.

Enough classics to outweigh the ephemera

Maybe a grower but in the time restrictions of this project, needed more quality control for me.

Sort of silly fun, but pretty formulaic and vocals more impressive than enjoyable to me, so overall got tiresome.

Pleasant but bland overall, some tracks more interesting than others, but the synth and electric guitar/bass additions are generally bad/ dated and make it harder work.

Found this a brilliant late night listen. Loved the jam vibe, floaty harmonies, and Garcia licks.

Granted, a questionable choice for the only Ella Fitzgerald representation on this list, and far too long for the purposes of this project but.. it’s still Ella Fitzgerald and big band performing Gershwin songs and is a wonderful listen to me.

Solid commercial pop, including some good singles, some forgettable filler, and some total stinkers, and overall the production rescues the MJ-lite vocals..

Despite liking a lot of what the band was doing, I found a lot of the vocal lines pretty meh and didn’t like the singing (I found it consistently too pitchy and a bit affected more than raw). With the earnest / often uncomfortable lyrics too, I was pretty happy to get to the end of this. Final track a highlight for the above reasons.

Tedious

While I think several tracks are brilliant and beautiful, and get it’s a 5 ⭐️ album for artistic/cultural heft, i just don’t 5 ⭐️ love it as an overall listening experience (lead vocals/production) - at least on the number of listens I had time for for this project.

Enjoyed the production and creative sampling, and the different feel of this album to XX. I do like her as a vocalist and think she steps up to this more expansive style, but I think his voice worked loads better in their early more confined sound.

Some nice production and she has a good voice, but underneath it feels fairly style over substance - with fairly one-dimensional songwriting and quite derivative changes.

Though this lacks some of the more intricate, layered guitar compositions of Siamese Dream, there are still plenty of nods to that album’s sound, and the wider range of instrumentation and ideas here make for a wonderful musical journey. (I can understand that his singing is not for everyone and it is a bit more exposed at times on this record, but overall I love how effectively he uses his different voices).

Found the first few tracks life-affirming stuff but the second half(-ish) less interesting and a bit ‘desert blues by numbers’ in parts. Didn’t like the Kashmir cover much. Enjoyable overall though and will revisit.

Found this a grower and I liked the creativity and a lot of what the band is doing. The singing is mostly pretty dreadful but by design I guess and I didn’t mind it (the tuneful backing vocals provide a nice contrast too at times).

Le Freak is an absolute all-timer, and overall I enjoyed the grooves here more than Risqué.

A real grower for me. Enjoyed my first listen without being blown away but after more listens, and a better awareness of the band / this album’s context, I loved it. (And understand the absence of John Cale from the band facilitated this change of sound but I did slightly miss his dulcet Welsh tones.. )

Totally brilliant and hypnotic opening track. Overall I really like the sound and most of what the band is doing but while I don’t mind his singing, I just find the actual vocal lines quite samey and hard to engage with and so am unlikely to revisit this much.