1001 Albums Summary

If you’ve heard a blues/hard rock record in your life, you’ve heard all this done better.

This album makes me want to pray, and I’m agnostic. If that ain’t high regard, I don’t know what is.

If you’ve loved any pop or R&B music made in the past 70-some years, you will find something you love here, I guarantee it.

Never surpasses the title track; but so does 99% of all things on this planet.

The most uninteresting Metallica record. At least with Lulu, I can laugh at how absurdly misguided it is, and at minimum, St. Anger has a fun story as to why it’s so scuffed. This is just Metallica selling their souls, put to tape.

All but 3 things in this life are uncertain: those being, death, taxes, and the mothafucking Wu-Tang.

If this was just 30-40 minutes, I’d love it. But it’s not, and so this is the highest I can give it.

Not just the best Beatles album; the most career-representative Beatles album. Everything each Beatle did before and after this record is perfectly exhibited here.

One of the most accurately named albums of all time.

Ew.

THE metal album.

Beginning to realize a lot of people on this site just hate fun.

Weird how the best musical depiction of pre-9/11, Giuliani and gentrification NYC, that isn’t Illmatic, is from an alt-rock album by a goddamned Brit.

I like some Thin Lizzy songs. This is certainly not a completely shit record. But by God, how the fuck do they warrant me having to listen to an hour-long edited live album?

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring.

I feel like, if I was born in the 30’s, this album is what I’d be crying to, instead of being born in the 90’s and crying to Kid A.

These dudes rock harder than like 80% of current western bands combined.

The sorta neo-Krautrock songs on here are pretty good, and the more generic psych/indie pop songs just kinda fill space.

R.E.M. may be the most 4/5 band to ever exist. I’ve never been completely blown away by them, but I still always have a pretty good time nonetheless.

Yes, this is absurdly misogynistic, and Snoop is a apparently a MAGA nutter now, and I’m not here to defend any of that. All I’m saying is that Doggystyle more than deserves it’s spot as a hip-hop classic.

Jazmine’s a great singer, and the record touches on some topics I think are definitely important, but I just think the production is often boring, and it goes a little too far in it’s ambitions for it’s own good. Still had a nice time though.

The origin of life for death metal, and still goes hard as all hell to this day.

This would get a 4 for The Old Kanye producing the entire thing, if nothing else; thankfully, Common matches these beats perfectly. Then again, I never did too well in Math class, eh?

Putting my biases aside, it’s probably more of a 2, but I really want to just spite the bafflingly high amount of rock critics who think this isn’t just a boring, pretentious nothingburger of a record, so here goes.

What every indie rock band that came after this probably think they sound like. 90% of them are horribly mistaken.

The first of 6 Elvis Costello records this list is making me endure. I hope they aren’t all like this.

The poor man’s Peter Gabriel. Cliche at this point, but “Cars Are Cars” is possibly the worst written song made by a mainstream artist in the entire 20th century.

Dylan starts going electric, and starts getting good.

One of the most crushing feelings in the world: the feeling that you can tell, that so much effort was put into making something that just stinks like shit.

Y’know, starting this experiment, I thought that, in my first few weeks, that I was too nice, too forgiving. Thankfully, I’ve been able to disprove that in the past week or so, because I’ve been getting almost exclusively bad/mediocre records. And this, a torturous endeavor of trite, sloppy and annoying blues and 50’s rock pastiches, where the only acceptable song is a cover of a Robert Johnson song that I’d much rather listen to, might just take the fucking cake as the worst so far. The only positive is that it’s only 30 minutes, so I can be done with it sooner than later.

No band but Talking Heads could take a song as brilliant and profound as “Heaven” and follow it up with a song about believing all animals are in a conspiracy against you.

A decently enjoyable techno-house record, and I see how artists that I do like, i.e. Aphex Twin, Daft Punk & Justice, would be influenced by it. Same time, though, I’m not getting addicted to ketamine just for the sake of appreciating it more.

A pretty pleasant listen, and it’s got some out-&-out classics here, like the title track, “Jet”, “Mrs. Vanderbilt”, & “1985”, but it gets a bit repetitive, especially on the second side, and it’s very much not comparing to the Beatles’ prime era of innovation & achievement that this (and the far superior “RAM”) came off of.

Surprised at how good this was. Tight tracklist, some great grooves, absurdly catchy, and not as dated as you’d assume a disco record to be.

What more can I say about this record that hasn’t been said a million goddamn times already? It’s Highway fucking 61! This is like one of the biggest cultural touchstones in all of 20th century popular music, you don’t need me, of all people, to tell you it’s good!

Longest wait for “Free Bird” I’ve ever had to endure. -1 star, partially because I’m just irritable today, and partially for proudly supporting one of the most repugnant and embarrassing failed attempts at a nation-state in the history of man. Never forget that the Confederacy only lasted for 4 fucking years, and was an enormous economic and domestic disaster for all states involved. Anyone thinking that it’s something worth celebrating is not just an ignorant white supremacist, but also a historically/politically illiterate moron.

It’s rare for an album to be equal parts sincere, intelligent, weird and just completely ridiculous, but Neneh pulls it off. Props for separating itself from a lot of the forgettable new-jack swing of the era by incorporating more from jazz, trip-hop (before it really became popular, mind you), synth-pop and African music, and while the production does bring it a bit down, it’s still a great time.

The first Byrds album I’ve ever heard. I… have no clue why this is on here. I don’t hate country, to be clear, in fact, I enjoy a fair bit of 50’s-70’s country. But this is just not very remarkable country. I’d take a Cash, Merle, Nelson or Cline record from this era any day over this. Maybe it’s influential, maybe it’s not, but whatever the case, it’s not enough to make me care.

When you think about it for a bit, “Electric Ladyland” was kind of the point where psych-rock started to go prog. Jimi’s guitar virtuosity already spoke for itself, but here in particular, it’s coupled with the complex compositions, more metaphorical and abstract lyrics, wild jazz-inspired improvisation and ridiculous song/album length that makes it a lot more like what King Crimson or Yes would be doing, not long after this record’s release, than much of any psychedelic band at the time. (Fun fact I found after listening: Hendrix was originally supposed to be apart of the jam session that lead to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, so I think my theory holds up to scrutiny.) Of course, none of that would matter if it wasn’t good. But it really is a sublime experience (pun intended)! For me, I’d say it’s actually Hendrix’s best work.

If country was more like this today, I’d take back every joke I’ve ever made about it. Very simple on the surface, but such a captivating and emotional listen from front to back. Just what I needed, since the only two country albums I’ve gotten so far, I haven’t liked much. Bonus points for fitting 14 tracks in ~30 minutes.

Not even being clearly technically impressive, and having a fun story behind it, can change the fact that it’s still a whole hour of improvised piano.

So-so indie pop that occasionally tries to become the worst heavy metal you’ve ever heard (I swear, something must have been in the air in Scandinavia in the 90’s that just compelled all of them to take a crack at metal). Still trying to decipher whether or not the vocals are bad, or if they just aren’t utilized as well as they could be.

This. Fucking. Rips. An excellent example as to how repetition can be used as a stylistic choice in music; you notice and feel the more subtle changes /because/ there’s not many, if any, big changes. Moreover, it’s the perfect dance music for cyberpunk dystopia, so I’d argue it’s aged very well. Also, that album cover is golden. 10/10, would get addicted to ketamine to appreciate more fully.

Better than the actual Lynyrd Skynyrd album on the list, at least. Still didn’t need to be a double album, though.

Doesn’t match up to Paul’s Boutique, but it comes real close.

Take off “Living Loving Maid” and there is not a track that doesn’t reach excellence on here. Even if it packs itself to the brim with rock cliches, LZII still does those cliches better than almost any other record, and in a lot of cases, the cliches wouldn’t /exist/ without it! Crazy that it’s not even the best Led Zeppelin record…

Damn, with this right after Led Zeppelin II, I think I’m on a roll! Now, full disclosure, I’m a late millennial, and a high-schooler when this came out, so this record was basically inescapable in when it released; everyone I knew was bumping “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe”, “Backseat Freestyle”, “Swimming Pools”, “m.A.A.d. City”, “Poetic Justice” and “Money Trees”. From the popular kids, to the hipsters and hip-hop nerds, to the radio. Can’t blame them for all but one of them (coughcough “Poetic Justice” coughcough), those are great pop-rap songs that still make space for some very clever writing for Kendrick. But for me, the deeper cuts really stand out to me. The cinematic detail of “The Art of Peer Pressure”, the sheer emotion of “good kid”, the earnest beauty of “Real”… and don’t even get me started on “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of First”, words just don’t do that song justice! There’s times where I feel that this is better than TPAB. I’d say today’s one of them.