1001 Albums Summary

The Downward Spiral is one of my favorite albums of all time. Listening again I'm surprised at how modern it still sounds and how club ready songs like closer, terrible lies, and heresy are in particular. The angst really fits the cultural moment we seem to have been going through for the last 30 years.

Classic soul. Al Greens voice is a national treasure.

Iconic is a word that gets used far too often but that is the only word for this album. Banger after banger with Hope You're Feeling Better and Incident at Neshabur being my personal standouts.

I've heard this album, at least piecemeal, before and I never liked it. Listening to it all the way through now I get it more... But it's still a 1 to me. The rough production, the monotone beat, none of that gets to me. What kills it for me is the lack of groove. It's so stiff.

I can't hate this, it's a group of dudes just having fun, but it is very much not my jam. The first couple of tracks are aight.

The most damning thing I can say about Muse is I find them inoffensive. Supermassive Black Hole and Knights of Cidonia are bangers and always will be, the songs on the album that I don't vibe with are still FINE. In a normal world this would be a 4, but I'm not giving albums 4s or 2s so it's getting a 5. If you're going to ape Radiohead's brand of art rock I'd much prefer this direction to Coldplay's direction.

I can see some of what they're doing here. I can see hints of brilliance, lush production, cool ideas. This Is What She's Like's length and spoken word intro are pretentious nonsense. It's 3 songs stitched together, it's great but also exhausting. Reminisce Pt. 2 is mostly a spoken word track and is more pretention seeping into the record. There are neat things in here but the album is so uneven it's almost unlistenable to as an album for me. The Occasional Flicker and Listen To This are great, they're upbeat, they've got a good groove - Listen To This especially feels like a Dexy song. Fun times. Knowledge of Beauty and The Waltz are your ballads - your emotional anchors. The Waltz in particular is fantastic if you like that kind of emotional ballad (Or really, protest song but it feels like a ballad to me) but I just don't. Don't Stand Me Down is mostly brilliant but for me, and my taste, it's mediocre.

I'm torn on what to say. Other reviews, both professional and user, describe this as "We have Tommy at home." and that's not wrong. If you compare S.F Sorrow to Tommy it falls short. It's not as big and grandiose. It didn't get made into other media. The story telling is more abstract. But. It is also wonderfully psychedelic album, with a neat stereo mix, and a ton of fun sound experimentation. I loved it. Never heard it before this and am glad I have now.

Classic blues album, inspired so much of the blues rock that came after. Muddy was in excellent form for the recording.

It's... Fine. Britpop is clearly not my thing.

It's a yardbirds album. It slaps. It's not my favorite but it slaps.

Old school punk, starts out strong but meanders a bit towards then end of the record. Not bad.

Not one of us is the only standout on this album for me. I understand Games Without Frontiers and Biko's popularity but they're just not to my taste. The rest of the album comes across as needlessly atonal and too experimental to be really listenable for me.

40 minutes straight of Cyndi Lauper might be a bit much for me. But. This album slays. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is a classic for a reason, She Bop has been a favorite of mine for years and Time After Time is one of the few ballads I like. I had never heard Money Changes Everything or Yeah Yeah and I'm better off for having heard them now. The sound texture on this album is so quintessentially 80s it's almost painful, but like y'know. In a good way. 5/5 no notes, unexpectedly loved it.

I came into this already loving Dummy. This is an easy 5 for me. The longing in Beth's voice, the hard beats, the soundscapes. Dummy is a perfect record. Put it on when you need something sexy as a nightcap, when you're drowning in your feelings over that special someone, or just when you want to vibe the night away with some of the coolest and sexiest production ever put on wax.

What is there to say about Vincebus Eruptum? First I'll say their goal as a band is clearly to be loud and they nailed it. They are indeed extremely loud. Their version of Summertime Blues has long been a favorite of mine as a fan of proto metal, the rest of the album was new to me and is stiff, loud, blues rock. They sound a lot like a bar band that your dad might have played in, just a very loud one. The loudest one. I don't hate it, but it's also not all that different from a bunch of kids listening to Muddy Waters' 1960s Live at Newport album and going "we could do that! But louder!" It's loud, it's a vibe, it's decent, it's a 3.

I found this almost unlistenable due to it being boring. They tried to strike a middle ground between The Clash and The Sex Pistols and ended up in a no man's land of mediocrity.

For my personal taste this gets a 3. It's Tricky, Raising Hell, Peter Piper, Walk This Way, are classics, and there are more great tracks on this album so why only a 3. So why does this get a 3? Well first off Dumb Girl is misogynistic garbage. Second off the problem with Run DMC is their main lyrical subject is how awesome they are. It gets old, very quickly. This is a classic record, it's part of rap's golden age and Run DMC's lyrical acrobatics are on full display, great album, still a 3.

A Forest is good, but the rest of.the album is so minimal that it's just boring.

I appreciate what The Dolls inspired. I love that they sound like they're having fun, I like the provocation of men dressing in drag because fuck the normativity, people should be free to be themselves. Let's talk about the music: They sound like a bar band. It's bluesy, it has swagger, there is a sneer in the vocals that's is undeniably punk in its attitude. This is all cool. Unfortunately I also hate the vocals, they sound awful to me and are sometimes merely aggravating, sometimes borderline unlistenable. The rest of the music seems generic because it inspired so much that came after it, but listening to it with 2026 ears I just don't hear that much to be enthused by and there are no standout bangers on this sound track that'll make it onto a playlist for me, nor will I be spinning this record in its entirety again. It's fine.

I like prog and even I find this to be generic sounding and meandering. It's supremely inoffensive and also unmemorable.