1001 Albums Summary

Somehow could not bear to use my finite, fleeting time away from my actual life responsibilities to face this two-hour behemoth from 1995 on the day it was assigned to me. Now sick at home and feel obligated (I mean, I did sign myself up for this), so here I am. What I found is that this album is kind of like, I don't know, that movie Drive My Car or something: you don't feel the minutes as much as you think you will, and by the time it's over, you're convinced you would've sat for even more. I remember this being a classic among the older kids when I was growing up that never quite filtered down to me, or so I thought until I got to "1979," a song that had evidently been perfectly preserved deep, deep in the recesses of my brain for the better part of the past three decades and which hearing now felt every bit to me like a reunion with a childhood friend whose face I had forgotten. The radio used to be powerful! But what a funny memory that I realize now was quite formative to what moods and sounds I would come to like in music, even if I never connected it to the source in all that time. My unoriginal observation is that the lead singer's voice is nigh unlistenable in that way you just have to learn to accept where love isn't possible, because the band is operating at such a high level across the board that it all more than comes together. Sometimes it's nice to listen to something that you can hear in every note would've absolutely rocked someone's world to experience in a time before yours. I liked it in spite of myself, and I can see it worming its way into my heart and my head like it might have back then, some twenty or thirty years late.