Very much like the Beatles that came before; 1 or 2 very strong tracks surrounded by just okay ones, but the strongs are remembered and held up. Not particularly high highs here (the title track is the standout, and putting it first sets a trend that can't be followed by later songs). Perfectly fine.
A solid outing into the soul genre, and a strong example of soul by anyone's ear. I simply am not a soul person. This is surely in the upper echelons of its breed, but as soul music isn't something I would normally seek out I am unlikely to touch any of this album's content again. Admittedly I'm rarely a fan of covers, so this album featuring them quite abundantly took something from the album's identity for me, but that's solely (ba-dum) my issue. If you like soul I'm sure you'll see more from this album than I will.
Iconic with good reason. Several deeply influential songs in quick succession, with the tracks bulking out the album complimenting their more successful siblings well. Admittedly The End was a touch gratuitously long (that is to say, blessed with a 10 minute run it struggles to do much with) and Light My Fire being somewhat shrill through my headphones (a personal limitation), but that only hurts the album slightly. Good show lads.
Quality stuff throughout. My primary gripe with the album is, at least to an initial listen in one sitting, most songs to me failed to have a unique identity. Most of the album settled into my head as one lengthy calming sludge. Rather than a body made up of distinct parts, this was an admittedly high-quality viscous sludge. Not a bad album by any means, but for a listener such as myself I am unlikely to go seeking any of these songs out on their own, and would struggle to tell two songs on the album apart. Your mileage may vary.
I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this album as much as I did. Like a more mainstream and palatable form of Venetian Snares or Aphex Twin, but one that plays to the strengths of that by injecting a lyricism and beat the previous examples are normally to avant-garde to make a play for. Occupies a respectable niche that I didn’t think needed filling, but glad to see the fort is held by a good representative. Good time had by all.
To address my biases: I do not like live albums typically. That’s not to say no live album is good or can be good, nor is it to ignore the many live albums that play an integral role in the discographies of many top artists. They will just never be my preference. This album demonstrates this nicely to me: King is an excellent performer and vocalist, and his band supports him well, the album is solid, but so much is given over to a screaming crowd, or to conversation and talking to a crowd. This time is vital in live performance, but in recording it drags. We will never be the chief audience of this album, that was a privilege granted to those present. That the album is a short half an hour is a victory here, what novelty it offers would surely be lost by an extra 15 minutes. I did not dislike this album, it is fundamentally quality blues, but I feel it being a live album only hampers it.
This came up pretty early in my time working at this set of albums, and at the time was comfortably the most famous album to rear its head. It was the only album I knew of before the project i’ve encountered so far. As such, it had a level of hype to it the other albums simply didn’t. I found those expectations met perfectly adequately. Prince is an incredibly popular artist, one of the greats in the public subconscious. I do not dislike his work, neither am I a fan. I listen to some of his stuff passively, never really seek it out. I found the album to be, what I would consider with my limited knowledge of the former artist, a perfectly standard Prince affair. Possibly because it was the benchmark of what that means. Ran a bit too long for my tastes, and I was more drawn to the sideshows (Delirious, Let’s Pretend We’re Married, Something In The Water) Rhan the main attractions (Little Red Corvette, title track). Hasn’t converted me to the disciples of Prince, hasn’t given me a reason to dislike him, solid artistry throughout. Perhaps I would have given it a 4 without the fame that surrounds that name, maybe it would be the 3 I’m hesitating on. We may never know.
With such a long and varied list of albums, it’s an inevitability that you’ll run into some you just aren’t compatible with. Hip-Hop simply isn’t my genre. I’ve come a long way in the last few years in regards to it, I actually listen to it in my shuffle, but not in any great quantity, and only really interspersed between other stuff. It is the antithesis to my natural habitat of metal. Even if I liked the genre, I’m not sure I would have liked this album particularly. The quality of music on display was strong certainly, and I found myself enjoying the initial tracks just fine, but 18 tracks is just bloat, especially with some of the songs making up that bloat. You could cut half an hour here and not lose anything of value, you could cut more with minor concessions. Half the runtime and you’ll double my enjoyment, if not the score.
The first album that I own myself to be tossed my way. As with many people, I know this album mostly for the iconic Sympathy For The Devil, but I could happily match the names of most of these songs to this album, and grew up in a house that almost always had music on, with my dad’s love of the Rolling Stones meaning my exposure to them was high. Add to this a friend who has constantly been exposing me to the mere name Beggars Banquet to the past five years, and everything would point towards this being the first album to earn 5 stars. Sympathy just can’t be followed. This album is good, absolutely, songs like Salt Of The Earth and Street Fighting Man support Sympathy well and are well worth a listen on its own, but as a complete package what I received simply wasn’t able to meet the perhaps monstrous expectations I loaded onto it. Well worth your time; 4 stars is still a respectable score of course.
Normally I listen to an album from this list when I’m in a position to focus on it, like commuting. As I listened to this one at Easter, when staying with family, I didn’t have time to do so and listened to it whilst spending time with them. The wonder of headphones. I’m very glad I did. If I gave this album my undivided attention it might have gotten a 1 star. In an hour-long runtime I cannot pluck out any specific tune, lyric, or feeling. It’s like sticking your hand into the ocean; the water brushes past you. This album to me was entirely forgettable, it simply didn’t do anything with its time. I am not opposed to this sort of music inherently, a lyricist and a guitar have done wonders before, looking at someone like Nick Drake, but here it feels very hollow. Slim this album down, put some more energy into a song or two to break it up. Not an album as much as a single stretched out over an hour, and I don’t think it will chart.
This is your god?
I have never listened to Taylor Swift willingly. Unwillingly, plenty, she’s like a cancer, spreads everywhere and makes her presence felt. Her fanbase are infamous, I’ve had to study her at university on a gothic literature module; no that doesn’t make much sense does it? That’s the level of fame, or infamy, this woman has achieved. I admit to my bias against her accordingly; she has made plenty of music I would consider damaging to music trends, and is one of the few musicians whose discographies I would burn out of the fabric of reality to shunt the music trends are held in the gravity of their releases. I may go so far to say I hate Taylor Swift on a bad day, of course as an artist, not an individual. Hell as a Ravens fan during the reign of the Chiefs her little romance making news for no good reason is another sin against her. I knew I would not like this album, and I did not, but in truth I do not believe Swift could ever make a song I truly enjoy with such a rep list on her head going into this. To give points where points are due, and I must admit they are due, she’s a talented artist who sees together some catchy motifs. I am not a fan of modern pop particularly, but if you are that way inclined, this album is a hit parade. I’m surprised so many of Swift’s heavy hitting songs come from this album. I listened to it on YouTube, meaning an ad interspliced songs here and there, and there were times I was tapping where the “skip” button should be assuming a new song starting was an ad’s background music, which speaks both to how I perceived a lot of this album as generic pop, and also how this album has been influential enough to bend the landscape and the idea of the “norm” to fit its image. If you like pop, I’m sure this is your modern foundation. I have lampooned several albums with longer runtimes for not doing much with it; I am begrudgingly impressed that an album with so many tracks managed to not bore somebody expecting to find pop dull. I have been told this is Swift’s best album, and that the annual release cycle she is in means the quality has been dropping. I can believe that, and I can’t ignore the album’s quality purely for my own tastes.
You avoided being the first album to receive 1 star, 1989, and I was so ready to give it to you. Take your 2 stars and find a listener who can enjoy your properly, because I am not them.
Until now I have never listened to Ray Charles, but that’s not the same as not knowing about him. I know Ray Charles from the Blues Brothers, or more accurately from a partner whose favourite film is the Blues Brothers and adores it. She watched it daily at one point in her life. I of course have watched it with her several times, so I thought I had some idea of what to expect here: something upbeat and energetic like his performance of Shake A Tail Feather in BB. I was half right. This album is such a strange blend of high energy blues and slow crooner tracks that would be right at home on an album of Nat King Cole or Frank Sinatra, with the weighting being slightly in favour of the latter. I would have preferred the weighting to be reversed. Ray Charles has a great voice, and his band does a great job, but I certainly thought they worked better at the classic rhythm and blues than the slower crooner tracks. Not to say he was objectively better in one style than the other, purely personal preference. Charles is certainly adept at both, and the whole package here is a good listen.
I think cool is a fair descriptor. This album does such a great job of straddling that line between relaxing and energetic. It’s applicable pretty much everywhere and anywhere, and sounds good to boot. Whether this is a complement or a detraction is very much a personal thing, but this album really needs to be an album, huh? As a long span of frigidly cool jazz, it doesn’t really do anything different from song to song. This is not a great loss when every song feels like it’s wearing sunglasses indoors, but if you put a song name in front of me, put a gun to my head, and told me to give you any motif, bass line, or riff, I would have to tell you to pull the trigger. Birth Of The Cool is a feeling more than an album, put any one of these songs in isolation or a shifted playlist and it would fail to stand out. As somebody used to listening to and taking a song on its own standing, this is conflicting for me. But we’re ranking albums here, and this album was smooth to its core. Perhaps unlikely to revisit, or have an urge to pop a song from it in my queue, but I think this album performs the rare feat of living up to the lofty goal of being worth listening to before I die.
With albums like this representing the world of 80s rock, it’s perhaps easy to see why to this day the idea of the “rockstar” has such a unique mystique compared to their successful artist peers. This album is downright dirty in the best way. Some wonderfully screechy vocals and riffs that snag around the soul. An album of total power, and one I have evidently been sleeping on, even with it in my collection and sitting unplayed. Very pleased to have remedied that. Songs like Pour Some Sugar On Me, Def’s signature track with good reason, are absolutely five stars, and songs like Gods Of War and Run Riot complement it well. Having said that, a healthy chunk of the album cannot compete with the very high standard Sugar sets, and with the album running for over an hour, those 3 star songs that bulk the package out mean, at least to me, the total package does not quite reach that milestone. If we had a more friendly 10 stars to work with, this would comfortably be a nine, but 4 stars will have to suffice. Well worth your time.
I am always an advocate of being able to separate the art from the artist. Just because the golden cow has been proven mortal doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy its milk. If the acts of the lead singer who the band shares its name with is too much for you, I get it. My personal dislike of some artists have coloured my reviews, though admittedly that was more of a bias against their music than their character. Review this album how you will, and I will be reviewing it very favourably. My first 5 star, in fact. I think people get hung up on Marilyn Manson leaning into the persona of freakishly perverse or evil, and a lot of people won’t see past that to see the genuinely superb musicians behind it. It’s much the same as the intentionally provocative narratives behind the Sex Pistols and Alice Cooper, artists both whose musical capacity is excellent. Marilyn Manson as a band can pour such barely restrained power into their riffs, beats, and vocals over such a range of speeds and tempos. Not every song on here is perfect, Cryptorchid comes to mind as being easy cut fodder if we had to slim it down, but the vast bulk of this extensive album are fantastically engineered metal songs that just get your blood thrumming with life. Perhaps I’m a bit numb compared to most as a metalhead who sees Marilyn Manson not as “the outcast band” but as “the mainstream of a comparatively niche genre”, but if any of our artists were to get big, you can see why Marilyn Manson was the metal world’s offering. If you can overcome the personal dislikes of the band name and persona, there’s a really superb album left waiting for you.
U2 are always considered one of the greats, one of the bands who defined their era and whose influence rings through to today. As you can imagine in a list of highly influential, important, and other positive adjective albums, U2 are one of the many on our list of targets. I’m still early in my hit list, and of the heavy hitters I’ve gone up against so far, U2 is the one I get the least. That’s not to call this album bad, that would be deceptive of me, but The Joshua Tree is an album I have never listened to but know by name, by an artist with a reputation. I cannot understand why or how this album carved out the influence it did. The musicality of the album is solid, but not to me at least world-class. There are good songs on here, controversially to me the first three songs of the album, which I understand to be the big hits, were not the ones I would have ranked too highly, but even the ones in the moment I felt were strong and solid are ones I would rush to go back to. Perhaps the context, the time period it was released to and the concerts they continue to sell out, matters more than I’m realising. I know they’re often considered arena rock. I cannot knock the talent, but not for me. Worth a listen, but to me not worth a frequent return.
I consider myself a fan of the Grateful Dead. They are admittedly a band whose influences have chiefly always been stateside, they never really broke in over here the way they did in America, but I have long considered them a band I enjoy and have owned some of their work physically as a core part of my collection. I have always heard them referred to as a "live band", a band who differs so wildly from the recording studio to the stage and are held up as being an experience best understood in the moment of a live show, which is of course not a luxury we can experience in this age. As such, I was happy to see this pop up as the next album for me to listen to. I can't say I see why their live side is held up to such a high regard. Perhaps this truly is the way to experience the Dead; in a field or auditorium decades in the past, with all the culture that comes with it, but strip that away and smash it onto two sides of vinyl and so much of that is lost. To my ear this album is akin to the worst excesses of the ever wonderful King Crimson: long dithering riffs that don't turn into much except the next riff, an unconventional lyricist who works well in a studio where takes can be redone that don't translate into phenomenal recordings on stage, and psychedelia overpowering the music. I would be wrong to call it a bad album, and I am glad to have listened to it, but I am never a particular fan of the reality of the live album compared to the sterile perfection of the studio, and I would take any of the Dead's extensive studio release over this other side of the coin. Worth your time, not worth a higher grade than 3.
House isn’t a genre I would to particularly quickly. It’s an album I’ve always grown up with, but never really had an appreciation for. When I went seeking this album out and saw it was an hour long I was displeased; I wasn’t anticipating to like this album particularly, as I tend to find house blends together so easily and nothing really settles as anything distinct. I was expecting a slog. Instead I got a very funky, distinct album where every track felt distinct and worth its run time. It has my main gripe with house where I can’t remember much distinct about it as a whole package, outside of good sampling usage of the ringing phone, but that doesn’t really matter, because in the moment I very much enjoyed it. Well worth my time, even if I never think to come back for it. Shame it’s not on Spotify, otherwise it might become a regular in my playlist
Rap isn't a genre I have any form of affinity for. If anything I have a negative affinity to it. Until a few years ago, if asked what kind of music I dislike, rap would be unfairly my answer, a consequence of being bombarded by plenty of crap rap whilst first navigating the world of music and seeing it as a big mainstream genre I wanted nothing to do with. Gradually this has been worn down over the years by encountering better representations of the genre, and OutKast would be among the artists who softened my dislike. Hey Ya! was a song I grew up with, and whilst at the time I wouldn't have known to consider it rap, and perhaps still today wouldn't, it's a formative song for me. Stankonia isn't an album I looked into despite that; I still didn't like rap enough to sit down to a full album, and the one song I knew well from it, Ms. Jackson, was the least favourite of their songs I listened to with any regularity. I understand Stankonia was a significant release at the time, and I'm sure the social commentary hits harder if you were listening to it during the time of its release in the country it came out of, or were more ingrained into the scene, so for me I lost all that possible connotation. I found this album to be lengthy, lengthier than it should be, with a lot of the later songs feeling like padding and the abundant interludes that smatter the album being particularly unneeded. This album has some very strong songs. Ms. Jackson is probably it's main hit, it's the sole song I knew in advance, but there's some other real standout stuff. For me, Bombs Over Baghdad might be my single favourite song I've found through this process so far. It's only album 20, but as a metalhead I was coming here hoping in no small part to find metal and rock I had never listened to before, so for the first song I listen to on loop I first found here to be rap is staggering to me. For every great song here there's something more underwhelming. It's hardly a hit parade, and after B.O.B. nothing could stop that song thrumming through my head. Ironically it somewhat ruined the rest of the album for me. I'd rather listen to OutKast as single songs than a full album, even if I do now better appreciate their work. Listen to this album once, find the songs you like, and get out.
My Mum has always loved the Beach Boys, but I could never tell you much about them. I can name a handful of songs, give a general timeline, maybe link the Wilson surname with the band, and name one or two albums, but no more than that. I couldn't have said with confidence that Dennis Wilson was one of their members. I have one song from this album (Friday Night) in my huge playlist, so I encountered it quite frequently, but I never knew it was from the solo work of a Beach Boy. I always appreciated Friday Night in my playlist as a good balancer in a playlist of mostly very energetic songs as something more chill, and this album is like that to the last song. Nothing here will rock your world, but everything here is very tightly constructed, very relaxing music that straddles the line between letting that Beach Boys history shine through and carving a path of its own. A relatively short album (if you actually research what the album's runtime should be and don't bundle it in with Bambu), which is a help when this album doesn't excel in any area. A pleasant listen that might not stick with me for long as music, but as a mood I can't fault the tranquillity it provides.
Good quality perfectly serviceable punk. Nothing that will convert a non-believer to the merits of the genre, but it doesn't have to be an Earth-shattering experience to be worth your time. I'd love to say more but I didn't rate this until nearly two weeks after listening to it, and by this point a lot of it has left my brain. The only song I recall well is Charity, Chastity, Prudence and Hope, which was my favourite from my first run-through and has given a friend of mine very dangerous options because of the song name. If you're more of a punk fan I'm sure you'll get more out of this than I did, but it was solid all the same.
Here we go here we go! Finally an album I know well. Not just knowing the artist is out there, not listening to some of their other work, not knowing one or two of the big hits and getting to hear the rest of the album for the first time, an album I know back to front already, and with damn good reason. Nick Drake is in the class of the most phenomenal musicians. While not as sombre as his poignant later work (looking at you, Pink Moon), this album does a fantastic job of setting tone with such a small but masterfully utilised and manipulated instruments. Nick's voice, in the same way as equally fantastic guitarist Mark Knopfler, is not what any of us, now or then, would consider a mainstream musician's voice, indeed like Dire Straits Nick talks more than he speaks. But by god does he make it work. The words and the music combine so perfectly. This might be the first album I would genuinely consider being a requirement before the mortal coil is hopped. I've found other good albums and songs through this activity, but Bryter Layter really lives up to the task in a way the vast bulk cannot. At The Chime Of A City Clock and One Of These Things First will likely be two very high-ranking songs for the rest of my life, and there isn't a true dud on the album. Beyond my capacity to fault.
This album has really been overshadowed by some of Sabbath's later work, most obviously the cultural touchstone that is Paranoid, and to a lesser extent some of Ozzy's solo releases, but if Paranoid ran the self-title did much better than merely walking. A lot of the metal staples this album would perform such a major role in bringing into being, but of course that's because everything has to start somewhere, and metal started here. Perhaps more of a historical curiosity than a truly conventional metal album, or even conventional Sabbath album ironically, this album is well worth the time if only to understand how we got to where we are, and does a lot more than just educate during that runtime. Perhaps not as loaded with hits as the albums that followed, the self-title still includes a healthy amount of super tracks. Shame in an album with not many tracks on it that two are covers, never my favourite, but you have to invent the wheel before you can do much with it, so this is more forgivable. Thanks for all your hard work, lads.
I listened to this album twice, so I tip my hat for being the first album that made me do that. I am not hugely a country fan, but my partner is, so after listening to it all the way through I put it on whilst spending time with her, given it sounded enough like artists she often listens to like Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, and their ilk, to get a more informed opinion. The album's short enough it can be listened to twice after all. The verdict came back as it being liked, though lacking some of the story-telling the previously named artists achieved. So it certainly could be worse. For my own two shiny nickels, exposure to country through said partner has certainly softened my opinion on it, and I liked it well enough too. Perfectly standard country, with some lyricism and tunes I enjoyed in the moment, but have no real desire to return to regularly.
I can only imagine that in 1957 this was something that really pushed the boat out. It's easy to imagine with only a few record stores in your town and only a handful of radio stations to listen to, if you came across this for the first time it would just be so fundamentally different to anything else, like a world in itself. I did not listen to this album in 1957 however, I listened to it in 2026. Indian culture is not novel, it is far more present, and with music often permeating through the cultural membranes more than most aspects, I've heard the sounds of India for much of my life. This may have been the first, but it is by no means the best. I completely understand how this album and style may have held people, laymen and musicians both, in its thrall upon its first arrival, but to me this was a lengthy piece of work with far too much improvisation to be enjoyable and, with due respect Ravi, we are not in music class. Good music speaks for itself. Again I totally get why Sitar 101 was vital at the time of release, but I'd much prefer the music to simply speak for itself, which I can't say it did. A momentous piece of music history, but that doesn't have to mean it holds up. Ironically probably hits the brief of "worth a listen before you die" better than most stuff on here, but that doesn't have to be for all the right reasons in retrospect.
I'll be entirely honest with you about halfway through this album I figured out it was the soundtrack for the movie of the same name, which I didn't know existed, and read the film's Wikipedia plot summary on the bus, meaning I phased out for a significant chunk of the album's second half. Oops. Perhaps I should go back and relisten to it before adding a score that will be 1) publicly viewable and 2) affect this album's standing for potentially years to come, but I'm going to make the BRAVE decision to plough onwards in ignorance. We've all done it (no seriously we've all done it, I've seen some of your reviews, shame upon us all!) what parts of this album did settle in my brain were groovy to say the least, the album has a real coolness to it. Apparently the soundtrack did better than the film, which with Freddie's Dead and Superfly itself I can believe, some killer tracks on here that flew as singles. Some other songs did not grip me as much, and I do have to at least acknowledge the fact I could phase out for a great chunk of it shows not the whole album is deeply gripping, but I might come back and give it the time it more properly deserves, but soul isn't hugely my thing so I think this score would be the same even if I didn't get engrossed in the goings-on of Youngblood Priest (Hell of a name you got there pal, your parents must have panicked at the last moment) across three different films and two actors.
There’s a pretty common line floating around at the moment on the web that something is “an X of all time”, something that’s just there, completely unremarkable. On a list of albums meant to be the greatest or most influential of all time, this was certainly an album of all time. Dry was just that, very dry, very bland, and very forgettable. I can’t say I was enamoured with the vocalist’s performances or any of the musicians, they were perfectly fine, as was the riffs, Melodies, and lyrics. Everything here was just meh. Perhaps I’m missing something but in such a closed list I felt like this didn’t really deserve its place. Your mileage may vary but for me the mileage was low. Just ultimately okayish in the moment and forgettable as soon as it’s done.
