Really strong openers but sort of meanders in the back half,
I think I prefer Kate Bush as a singles artist more than as an album artist. Hounds of Love is good, I just don't know that I'd ever opt to sit down and put on a Kate Bush album as opposed to just listening to her best tracks on any given day.
It’s iconic, what else needs to be said. Would drop it to 4.5 for that one interlude track if I could but I gotta give SOMETHING a 5 eventually.
It’s the first album I remember ever consciously listening to but I was on the fence about actually returning given how awful a human being MJ was.
Like, the first movie I ever remember watching was also Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, effectively all based around the songs from Bad. Does that make this a concept album?
The songs are still incredible compositionally and super formative for me, and I feel like dumping this as a 1 or 2 because of how I feel about MJ also does a huge disrespect to everyone else that worked on this - particularly the excellent Quincy Jones production.
Nowhere near Radiohead’s best but… it’s still Radiohead. Shortly before their prime for my tastes but you can still see how the foundations they laid here will grow and develop into records like OK Computer, Kid A and In Rainbows.
Something about the way the distortion and reverb hits on this album makes it my favourite of Hendrix’ output. Probably helps that it has higher highs for me than his other work.
An album that gets better each time I relisten. I remember being sort of middling on it at first but this most recent re-listen cemented its excellence for me. Maybe it just hit me differently at this point in my life and after all the other music I’ve heard that’s changed and influenced my taste in the years between listens.
I ain’t listening to 3 hours of this again. I didn’t vibe with it on my last and hopefully only listen and I’m not willing to sacrifice another 3 hours to see it my opinion has changed. Life’s too short.
I respect Kraftwerk as pioneers of electronic music, but I still don’t love their output. It’s all a bit twee and awkward, particularly whenever vocals are involved. I don’t actively dislike their stuff though. This is just a middle of the road album for me.
Some incredible tracks alongside some of my least favourite entries in the entire Beatles discography.
I’m not even talking about Revolution 9 which is at least so strikingly bizarre as an audioscape that it illicits some kind of thought provoking reaction out of the listener. Wild Honey Pie is one of the worst things ever committed to recorded audio in history and its only saving grace is that it’s a short track.
Otherwise I can’t fault the production on the White Album. Even McCartney’s grandma songs sound nice sonically despite still not being for me even remotely.
Less good than I remembered it being. A few highlight tracks but probably not an all-timer for me at this point.
A clearly incredibly important album, if I rated it from that perspective it’d be a clear 5 for legacy and influence.
From a modern perspective and for my personal tastes, it keeps to a very narrow scope. It excels with blues bars and that early rock n roll structure, but that’s all there is. The tracks sort of blur together in my mind and all sound alike. Thankfully, it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome at a swift 30ish minutes though!
Don’t know that every Jimi Hendrix track is a hit for me, and I’m not always huge on his vocals, but this is clearly an incredibly important record that was far ahead of its time.
An album of two halves for me. Some tracks I love, others I was just confused by. Parts of it feel like proto Pixies which I can get fully behind, the other half was probably too experimental in a way that wasn’t massively cohesive for me. Felt like those tracks came from the school of flinging things at the wall and seeing what sticks.
I’d probably give it a 3.5 if I could but will have to settle on a 3.
Y'know I liked this more than I thought I would for a Country album. Still not my taste at all but I could easily have this on in the background and be perfectly content.
Peaks with the first two tracks and the rest is mostly just passable, if unmemorable, bubblegum pop. Don’t have much else to say about it really.
Helps that Lennon is my favourite of the Beatles songwriters but I do understand the complaints that this is basically just a Beatles album recording of Lennon channeling the therapy he was going through.
A few days after listening (and this is maybe my second or third listen ever) and the songs have again slid entirely off of my brain. But I still like this every time I listen to it - especially compared to other late era Beatles output like the White Album. It’s consistently good, even if I don’t think it stands as an all time great.
Better than I was anticipating and I would probably relisten, but I’d also struggle to remember how any of the tracks actually sounded.
Is this one of the 1,001 albums of all time though? Probably not.
It's an interesting turn for Beck to just make a breakup album that barely even resembles his other work. It sticks out, but mostly in a good way. Surprisingly cohesive and I always got the impression of it being honest and genuine.
An almost perfect album. Works at it’s best when Air are playing to their strengths, and stumbles when they’re trying to be more subtle and cinematic. Final track is a bit limp compared to the preceding one, which would have left things on a stronger note - might have been improved without the vocals.
Insane to me that some reviews go below the 3 mark for this, or even go so far as to insinuate that Air are “not real artists”. If anything, this list needs far more soundtracks than it currently has and more than just film soundtracks too.
I’m a Dylan hater (or just find his music does nothing for me). Entirely forgettable apart from learning that one of Adele’s song is a cover of a late track on here.
Made more tolerable by imagining Slinky Dog from Toy Story was singing this album to me instead of Dylan.
I’m still rating this a 4 but I don’t disagree with the lower aggregate this has on here. If you cut Moonchild entirely, this is an easy 4 or higher.
Costello never really hits for me. Imperial Bedroom’s tracks have some incredible composition, but every time I listen to anything by EC I’m always left thinking “I wish this was sung by someone else.”
An incredible debut, thoroughly consistent even if I don’t think every track is an all-timer.
Only real complaint is that the album ends so abruptly. Feels like it needed an extra track to wind down rather than just stopping but it is what it is.
Was better than I was anticipating and ended up knowing at least two songs. Starts out strong but by the end I understood why this was eventually removed from the list. Completely fine but surprised it ever made it on the list originally. Recency bias perhaps?
Surprised by how many of these tracks I knew already, and how much more I enjoyed it just by virtue of being an album not by a guy/bunch of guys. Incredibly refreshing and worked for me in a way that a lot of rock of this era doesn’t.
I think I’d probably err close to a 4.5 if I could but probably one of the most influential albums of the 90s with numerous all-timer singles. It’s closer to a 5 than a 4 though, and unlike others on this list I’d rate 4 stars and think “is this really one of the 1,001 compared to other omissions?” RATM is undoubtedly something that should be on anyone’s version of the list.
Not one for me. I just don’t like folk.
I forgot how good Led Zep II was. Just an incredibly cohesive work. Whilst every track may not work as a single or all time greatest hit, the cumulative effect of every track in sequence is staggeringly enjoyable.
I remember being quite ambivalent on this when I last listened, but I enjoyed this way more than I was anticipating upon return. Maybe I was just in a foul mood originally.
Whilst I think it’s a travesty that Mezzanine isn’t on here but EBTG get two albums, I find most of the other user reviews on here being quite harsh on balance. Critics, both professional and non, generally seem to struggle with having anything nice to say about any music even tangentially dance related.
I’d probably put this at a 3.5 if I could, but I’m giving it a 4 to both be a bit more positive and to counter out the lazier thoughtless reviews.
It’s hard to form an opinion on this when every track has blended itself into an abstract lump of play-doh in my mind. It’s a multi-coloured lump of play-doh you could still play with just fine, but you’re never gonna smoothly unblend those colours again.
That is to say, I didn’t hate this but I don’t particularly remember any track immediately afterwards or think anything was particularly standout during my listen. Just fine.
Not every track works for me but when it hits, it really hits. Just happy to have something to listen to that’s so sonically different than the vast majority of this list.
If Coldplay has no haters I am dead. I guess I generally prefer this Radiohead knockoff era of theirs to their latter Swedish House Mafia for Mums one but it’s degrees of difference at best.
I’d regularly think the opening instrumentation for a track was quite nice only for Chris Martin to open his mouth and ruin the whole thing.
That said, Yellow and Trouble were basically UK radio mainstays for most of the 00s and have earned their place as a piece of the furniture. Not good furniture, mind. It’s more like some weird little tchotchke you’ve always known at your grandparents house. Hideous, but to not have it there would be fundamentally wrong.
I was ready to instinctively give this a 5 on the back of Tom Sawyer, YYZ, Limelight and Vital Signs but re-listening reminded me there’s a good reason why I tend to always skip the other songs.
Some of the longer, softer prog ballads feel so self indulgent, even when they’re not singing about a Ferrari. I’ll settle on a 4 but those earlier mentioned tracks truly are all timers.
I prefer Getz / Gilberto but this is still an all timer in my books.
Already knew I liked the most famous tracks on the album but never listened to it as a whole.
Starting to think Machine Head might be a good album.
Supremely easy to listen to but nothing really jumped out as me as incredibly memorable. Very much a background listen for me.
Blues can sometimes feel too structurally repetitive for me, but Muddy Waters at Newport earns its reputation for me with the caveat that the B Side does most of the heavy lifting. The sheer energy on the second half of this album salvages a fairly middling Side A for me.
