1001 Albums Summary

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.

Objectively I think I would probably have a better time with this process if every album aligned with my pre-existing tastes. 1000+ metal and rock albums would probably give me more music I keep returning to than the smattering we have where there's pop, punk and country that don't appeal to pre-existing tastes. Albums like this are why it's always good to challenge those easy comforts. I would never have sought something like this out and it was a really pleasant surprise. Maybe a touch long in places but really enjoyable different and distinct, does a great deal in its runtime and keeps things pretty damn fresh throughout. Not my favourite, but living up to the name of being an album worth listening to before I hop the mortal coil. The kind of album that makes the variety feel worth it.

The Buzzcocks have the dubious honour of being the worst band I've heard live. That's not to say I think the band is inherently bad, but their particular set on that particular day was pretty damn rough. Opening act for the Stranglers, outdoor venue, not sure if the sound check was just weirdly, the acoustics of the venue didn't fully fly on a blustery day, or just a phoned in performance, but it was a real din. Very disappointing for me given I tend to really try and pay attention to the opening band. With that as my baseline my bar here was pretty low. The good news is they cleared it. This album certainly didn't blow me away, it had a little cluster of songs I enjoyed just fine, a lot more that in the week or so between listening and reviewing have drifted back out of my skull, but I certainly didn't hate my time here. Things could certainly have been a lot worse given my previous track record with the band. Don't exactly see what all the hype is about per se, but at least I can now more confidently say that at the very least they aren't just a bad outfit. I'll keep my ears primed to see if this redemption arc can go any farther.

An unfortunate case here where perhaps being too good and too prevalent hurts the score, because this album walked so Iron Maiden could run. This feels very spit-and-sawdust for the efforts of one of metal's most storied and beloved bands, and it's incredibly tough to fully appreciate what this album has to offer when you have tracks from Powerslave, Piece Of Mind, or basically any album where Bruce Dickinson is on vocals. Bless him, the vocalist here just cannot compete with that signature sound, and that's not to say this is a bad album or a bad effort, but it's certainly an unrefined one compared to the discography of the future Maiden they're competing against. In no way bad, but not a huge amount going on here, and anyone who recommends you the self-title as your first Iron Maiden album would be doing you a disservice. Influential in its era it may be, but today, when Iron Maiden are a household name (literally in my case, hazy family connections mean they're the outfit I have the most actual links to), this is not the signature sound or highest quality of their work. I really hope this list has more than just this album from them, because if the 1001 book authors just slapped this album down for being the first album by a big band I'll be sorely disappointed. Looking forwards to crossing paths with Maiden later on my list of albums, now that I have their weaker work out of the way. Good stuff, but a shadow of the Iron Maiden so many of us know.

This is a strange one for me, because I can tell the music is good, I can tell Elvis Costello is a solid songwriter and vocalist with a backing band playing a great album, and I listen to a healthy enough lump of Costello that I'm neither unfamiliar with his work or actively not a fan of him. This all seems to point towards a favourable review. Tragically, I just didn't click with this album. I can't even put my finger on anything specific, there was just no spark. Good musicianship, just lyrics, good songs, dare I say good album overall. It pains me to give what-I'm-deeming an objectively good album a middling score of 3, but the lack of personal connection on this one... I can't compute it, it just didn't work for me. I've seen plenty of people leave 1 star reviews for the same reason, I'm not going to be that cruel, it just, as so many people have said before about so many different things, wasn't for me. Sorry Elvis.

To put it simply, I just had a really good time with this album. I knew some of Prima's work before hand, not in any huge capacity, but the two songs of his I do know are fortuiously both from this album (Gigolo and Banana Split), so I had some idea of what this album would sound like and what to expect, but no particular expectation I would inherently like it. I certainly did. This album is just a lot of fun, the jazz holds up impressively well 70-odd years after its release and every song is individually entertaining, in no small part due to the impressive jazz being backed up by very light-hearted lyrics. Not entirely my thing, but if this album reared its head again 100 albums or so down the line I certainly wouldn't mind going through it a second time, a rare praise with even some of the strongest albums here not being a return-trip kind of experience. Louis and his band just seemed to have a good time here, and I was more than happy to come along for the ride. And that's without touching on the actual musicians at play here. Prima is a great vocalist who suits the upbeat, often silly lyrics to a T, and his backing band really shine through. I'm always a bit of a sucker for brass as a sound, so the backing band's performance was very enjoyable. Perhaps not worthy of full marks, but admittedly not far off, which from my previous Prima experiences I was not expecting him to hit such a high. Maybe not the wildest! anymore with nearly a century of newcomers raising the stakes, but a solid album all the same.

It's been some time since I last checked in on this list, about a month or so. Life gets in the way. As such, I don't have the luxury of having listened to this album within the last hour or day to better inform what I normally like to make a good and chunky review, I only have the hazy recollections of listening to it on a train heading south. That those memories are so hazy must be treated as a mark against this album. I settled on this being a 3/5 at the time, with nothing particularly gripping or rancorous; I can be a bit too forgiving with my "mehs" normally being given a still solid score. I just no longer remember exactly why I wasn't gripped. A shame to leave it at just that, but I'd prefer to push on with the remaining 1000+ albums than dredge back through an album I've already ticked off the list and found just okay.

One of the most highly rated albums on this list per our communal discussion, and likely one of the most famous albums of all time. In many ways it seems odd to consider 4 stars in any way "disappointing", but here that is below the average, is it not? This album is good, undeniably, but with such a reputation very little could live up to it, and it is a personal matter with my own tastes that so much of this album are covers. Led Zeppelin deserve their place in music's history, and I doubt many will dispute that, I was only surprised they got there blazing onto the scene with a great many covers, but it was a different era. A lot of power, strong vocals, and excellent riffs and beats, but not all I was hoping for from a band with such a throne. Good stuff, but I hope the next Led Zeppelin album I find on this list scratches that itch a touch more than what I got here. A solid start all the same, and sometimes that's all a worldchanger needs.

I really wish this system operated on an out-of-ten spectrum rather than an out-of-five one, because more than any album I’ve listened to so far this one really straddles the line between scores. 3 is too high, 2 is too low. I’ll side with the more generous 3 and assume good intent, but this is really a 5/10, not a 3/5. My knowledge on Björk is very limited, I knew vaguely of the genre and the artist’s reputation outside of their music; they seem to be a lovely person. But artist is not art, and Björk’s stuff isn’t particularly for me. A smattering of songs were enjoyable, and generally if any one song from this album came on the radio I wouldn’t change station, but I also wouldn’t return to this album or any song from it without a reason I’m yet to be given, because this album on its own is inadequate reason. Björk is a fascinating vocalist; she doesn’t really sing, she doesn’t really talk, it’s somewhere in the middle, and I’m not fully convinced it works. That’s not to say to be a good vocalist you need to be a conventionally good singer, looking at Nick Drake or Mark Knopfler neither are conventional vocalists but their music is structured to lean into that and the results are fantastic. Here I feel the two sides are much more disconnected and exist independently, and Björk’s music are stronger than the vocals lagging behind. Also one live album injected at the half-way point of a studio album is a bizarre choice I cannot say I liked. If you’re more into your pop you might get something more out of this, but this album did little for me. Consider this a 2.5.

This album washes over you, which to different people will be a positive or a negative. When I saw the length and clocked it was country in the first few songs I was quite worried; country is very hit or miss for me and in my experience with their longer albums I’ve tended to feel a country artist will slap any and all songs they have prepared onto the album without considering cutting or leaving some songs for every artist’s inevitable “Rarities and B-sides” compilation. This album does work however. The seamless transitions between song and the fact most sound quite alike means this feels like a very dense long song, and so the runtime is less of a concern. I could definitely sleep to this album, which I see as a good thing but I can’t imagine it would be seen as such by Mr. Stills. I’d listen to it again, which several 3 starers definitely wouldn’t get.

California Dreamin' is doing some real heavy lifting here. This was a good and short album but very few of its tracks were memorable and almost all of them could be exchanged and confused for each other. Not a bad album certainly, this type of sound is certainly worthy of its place within such a great mass of albums, but it is not my thing. California Dreamin' is famed for a reason, and I enjoy that every time I hear it, but it alone saves this album from being a 2. 3 is likely objectively a more fair place for it regardless, but for somebody with my taste it is a real close thing. Don't regret my time with it, glad that time was only barely over half an hour.

I simultaneously want to like this album more and less than I did. Quite conflicting, not an unenjoyable experience, but the quality of the musicians is evidently quite strong, and not something that needs to be so perpetually infantile. There's no shame in having some lighter and cheekier songs in your discography that's to be certain, music shouldn't always be taken seriously, but there is one, at a stretch two, songs on this album the snobbiest of us wouldn't raise an eyebrow at. I just feel like a lot was squandered by the tone of the album. Compare them to what, in my mind, are their most obvious rivals in sound and style Outkast achieve and their legacy with a similar disregard for "proper" etiquette in music and very similar style and Outkast's discography still bulges with more serious songs alongside the more provocative tracks. Without that backbone of songs that take themselves more seriously, Pharcyde to me feel like a cultural moment which seems to have passed. I'm a snob and a prude, I confess and will be the first to say, and that absolutely colours how I rank this album, but so much was squandered here.

This album occupies a strange place for me, in that it both quintessentially achieves what I was looking for in this list and absolutely could not be on here. I realise this list is compiled from a book with a set number, and keeps every album that has been in any edition even as some are removed to make way for newer releases; I sincerely hope this album is one of the 100+ that are part of that clique of formerly-part-of-the-1001. On one hand, I feel like a more informed music-fan for having listened to this album and stepping outside my comfort zone by listening to a genre I would never choose to listen to performed by a musician I have never heard of. On the other, I didn't enjoy this album and don't feel like my life would be incomplete having not listened to it. Perhaps that is the point of this list, to make us more well-rounded and show us what exists outside the narrow lines of our well-worn favourites and preferences. On this occasion, I cannot say ignorance is so harmful. This album is in no way bad, to clarify, but I would say it peaked early and then didn't know when to stop. To me the album's strongest tracks were in its initial few. These were songs I would not mind hearing in a rotation of other stuff, something to break up my normal habits, but by the time we reach the unremarkable title track the near-hour of reggae has become a drag, not unbearable but certainly tedious. I salute those who get more out of this than I do, and say it is not a weakness to have a favourite genre and acknowledge what does and, more pertinently here, doesn't work for you. I imagine I am a better music-fan for hearing this album, but it was an album more endured than enjoyed.

I am somewhat new to Beck still. Most of my narrow knowledge comes from a select few songs from his one album I own on CD; Odelay. I don't think I've actually sat down and listened to it in full yet, but I enjoy the songs I do know. I imagine if you're more of a regular listener this ninth album may be more of the same and not rocking the boat, which is the opinion I see often held in reviews. Lacking that depth of knowledge, or at least play-time, I am more judging this as a judgement of Beck's sound and style, rather than ranking Guero compared to every other Beck album. And I like it. Nothing on this album drags, the run-time is well used and on the right side of lengthy for its novelty, something many albums on this list struggle with, songs mix and meld in a way that is pleasing whilst still having individuality, Beck's voice is... peculiar for lead vocals but complement the tone and sound rather than dragging things down, again a struggle for many albums. I felt at peace with this on rather than bored, even with an additional two songs on the version I listened to knocking the runtime higher than Beck originally intended. Maybe on a second listen I wouldn't be as glowing, and Beck still isn't a musician I would want every other song on a playlist to be one of his tracks, but this felt like a solid, reliable outing from an artist I would do well to know better.

And the way is opened... I am a metalhead. I have made no secret out of this (I say, as if there were any readers to pick up on this; I am screaming into the void), so it should be no surprise I give the crucible of the genre a 5. Paranoid is not Sabbath's first album, so it you want to be technical and official you can trace the metal routes back a bit deeper to the self-title. The self-title established Black Sabbath. Paranoid established metal. And what an establishment it is! This album is certainly worthy of ushering the way in with an opener like War Pigs, a closer like FWB, and a title-track that left generations of adherents to the genre in its wake. Every song does something on this album; there is no fat, there are no wasted seconds. Even the perhaps weaker songs serve a purpose: Planet Caravan will be a much appreciated break for many after such an intense pair of opening songs, and Rat Salad is an incredibly impressive technical showcase doing what Eruption does for Van Halen with none of the fame standing on its own, and that is a shame because even though I hope nobody was doubting Sabbath's technical skill they have it in droves and letting them play unimpeded can never be a bad decision. Osbourne's vocals and Iommi's riffs and sound birthed a whole genre (even if maybe perhaps I prefer Dio's vocals on Heaven and Hell as a vocalist for Sabbath but even I know that's heresy so we keep that between ourselves because Osbourne is Black Sabbath's sound so shush) and rightfully so. These are roots that run deep, and even with generations come and gone since to restructure, rebuild, and reforge metal, the roots still shine brilliantly.

Well, I suppose this was inevitable. Giving my first 1 star was something I was wasn't looking forward to, and with several songs I fully expected it to go to dodging it and landing at 2 I was hoping it would take some more time still. On the plus side I've given four 5 stars to album by the time my first 1 star appeared, which feels like a victory. What I have learned from this album is that I prefer an album that I think "I don't enjoy this" to an album I think "I am incapable of possessing an opinion on this". You may as well have a view on rainwater, or sunlight, immutable facts of the world. Albums I have previously ranked low are albums I don't get, I never see myself plucking a song from their track listing and going back to, but that I know is for an audience, that there are people out there who would look at the album and have an opinion entirely different to my own. I know there are people out there who have opinions on this album, I've seen their reviews and seen that 3 stars is the most common rating this album has, so people surely have opinions on it, but for the life of me I can't understand how. I listened to this album on my commute less than 24 hours ago, it is the same commute I take every working day, with minimal distractions. On paper then, this album should have had my undivided attention. Yet looking at the track listing again I can point out only one or two songs where I can remember a lyric or motif. How do occupy my mind for nearly an hour and leave the best part of a minute in there? To me this album is like Lo-Fi; it washes over you without leaving anything behind, something not there to be focused on but to fill the space, a pleasant occupant to prevent something more engaging from sitting there. There's nothing wrong with that, but people use Lo-Fi as a tool. Have you ever heard anyone say their favourite song is a Lo-Fi track? This album feels like Lo-Fi with a budget and chart placements. These 1001 (and a bit) slots are contested, this is the first album I cannot fathom how it was deemed worthy of one.

I like jazz. I don't have an ear for jazz. These are true in equal measure. Jazz as a genre often feels like it is a lot less structured than most genres, something which of course wildly varies and depends on the artist performing and the composer composing, with verses and choruses being very much optional and instrumentals being far more present. Apparently this album is a composed piece, a very tightly and technically composed one, but as I say I don't have an ear for it. I would fully believe you if I was told this was an improvised suite. I would counter and tell you it was a good improvised suite, but not correct the mistake, and in my experience improvised pieces are less enjoyable to me personally than the tightly controlled pieces this album is made up of, but that I can't identify as such. A good album, hard to deny, but perhaps not an enjoyable one. Technically impressive more than fun.

I imagine this process is like a crisis of faith for many people. You undertake hoping to find great music you've never heard of before or never given the attention it deserves, spoonfed by a guide you trust to know what you want better than you do. And so you set off with great expectation. You recognise a lot of names on the way, a melody you might have heard here and there over the years, but most of the albums you hear are right down the middle or slightly worse. You give them a 2 or 3 and move on, hoping the next one is the album you've been waiting for. When you do give an album a five star, it's because you know it already; you know the band, or even the album itself, well already and were quietly confident it would earn a 5 before you even hit play, but you think to yourself that elusive music you came here looking for is still out there, and you press on. Little speaks to you, perhaps a song here and there is worth revisiting, but what you came here for is still to be found. And then, there it is, something you've never listened to that's simply wonderful, that makes the 1 and 2 stars worth giving their day in court and the sea of okay 3 stars worth slogging through. You have been given your sign. The Man Machine is the sign for me. Like most people I knew Kraftwerk and I could name a few big songs like The Model and Autobahn, I knew the robot motif and could vaguely describe their sound, but I have never sought out or craved Kraftwerk before. This is the first five star I'm giving going to a band I wouldn't have predicted to get one. This album is just so much fun; the very modular and constant song design, every instrument sounding like it's covered in sci-fi chrome panelling, the almost-spoken words in many songs, the distortion in the sound. Superb theming and sound design backed up by beats that could only work and only come from a band like this. I can only imagine what it sounded like on release, when you didn't have access to such vast catalogues so easily. It must have sounded like this album came from another reality. Given The Man Machine is a relatively short album I even listened to the German album the following day as a point of comparison and to see if any songs suffered or benefitted from the language they were sung in (Neon Lights I think benefits from German but I like The Robots and The Model more in English) and I enjoyed that experience as much as the first less than 24 hours after first hearing the album. This is why we tackle this mammoth undertaking, for moments like this.

Cream and this album have a Hell of a reputation, one that any band would struggle to live up to. The label of the first supergroup is probably the top fact anyone can name about them, and that has a certain level of fame attached for obvious reason. Compound that with Disraeli Gears being often held up as their best album, and anyone would go into this album expecting it to be the best of the best. Nothing can live up to that, but Disraeli Gears does better than I imagine most would do. The opening duo of Strange Brew into Sunshine is incredible, and if the rest of the album continued in that vein this would be an easy five stars. As is, the album loses steam as it goes on, with a fair amount of its middle being less engaging and the last song being downright silly given the incredibly skilled musicians performing it and how it interacts with the tone of the album. It goes without saying that the playing on this album is exceptional in its strongest moments, Cream earned the title supergroup with good reason, and that is where Cream always shine, but they shine at a pace that can't be maintained for the runtime and the fizzle feels noticeable by the halfway mark. That's in no way to say this is a disappointing album, I think even with such a reputation this album delivers what you want. Hell, when I was courting the person who became my life partner and I was asked the classic romantic question of "who is your favourite Prime Minister" I said Benjamin Disraeli "because of the album. I wasn't very politically aware at the time and it didn't take much to decide my "favourite", which given how limited my music knowledge was then compared to now, the legacy is strong.

I am of the opinion that Joni Mitchell is a stronger lyricist than she is a musician. That's not to say she is a bad musician, her guitar shines through on a lot of the album, but her sung lyrics look a lot better on paper than through headphones. I don't tend to like wailing outside of classical or operatic music, and Mitchell spends a lot of this album in frustratingly high tones, tones that often make it a lot harder to hear the lyrics that I think are the main star of this album. I find a lot of the songs here a lot more of a pain because of the fact they are songs rather than, say, poems, because a lot of the fascinatingly creative lyrics are stuffed into a runtime they are not suited to, leading to dragged out words or sentences rushed through and crammed together to fit vaguely in line with the music. The two halves sound discordant with each other; if this was a collection of poems or an album of ambient guitar tracks I would like either outcome much more, as is Blue just isn't the sum of its part. Give Mitchell a guitar in a band and a spot behind the desk writing the lyrics for their songs and I would probably love her. As is I can understand why her fame is what it is, but with the asterisk of me not particularly enjoying my time with her.

I really don't have much to say on this one. Most of it faded into the background for me immediately. I tend to listen to these albums while doing at least something else; I don't think many of us have the luxury of taking 30 minutes to an hour out of our day every day to give an album our undivided attention. I enjoyed the first song well enough, everything after that I could barely muster up the ability to pay attention to it, and after a while I must have stopped trying. Pop is definitely not my thing by and large, so it's only the genre's exceptional stuff that will hold my attention. So far on this list I am yet to find such an album. I'm sure you'll get more out of this if you're more well versed in pop, and your mileage may vary generally, but I didn't find this anything other than unremarkable and not my thing. I'll take Lordi over Lorde every time.

When I saw "debut album" and "rock band" on the listing for this album I was quite excited. GLB are not an act I have ever heard of, and with rock being my bread and butter I had high hopes I was going to find something on here I would like. On this occasion I feel like the handy-dandy Wikipedia heading misled me, and I should have paid closer attention to the genre listing as country off to the side. Because this is rock in the loosest possible sense. Don't get me wrong I didn't dislike this album, the lyricism and vocal performance were very solid and a lot of very novel and interesting stories were woven in the songs here (Dixie Drug Store particularly stuck out to me and is probably the album's highlight for my listening ears), but overall this feels very of its era. You can tell this was released when R.E.M and Nirvana ruled the world, with its softer music and vocal focus, vocals that don't squander the focus but feels quite departed from the genres (both rock and country) who have planted their flags in the ground. Not unpleasant. but not overly noteworthy. Worth a listen once, though I'd hesitate to return to it too soon.

Well this is something very different, isn't it? I recently lampooned an album for being somewhat akin to what I called "lofi with a budget and chart placements" and I was very harsh to that album for that crime. This takes that modem of sound and shows that it can be good. This album feels like it would be always applicable; there isn't a situation where it can't go on. It's so experimental and isolated. I certainly can't think of another album quite like it. That makes it quite hard to review, other than saying that I enjoyed it and thought it is objectively good. Relaxing, enigmatic, and deeply talented. The Sound Of Someone You Love is a particularly good track. I'd be happy to revisit this one again in the future.

Why don't we talk about Steely Dan more? Genuinely, a band whose "Best Of" albums will be loaded with hits drawn from a strong discography, with technically gifted musicians and superb lyrics blending styles and tones across an album, they would not be out of place in conversations alongside acts like Queen or Bowie. But I never seem to hear much about them. Certainly in a long conversation about great acts and artists they will come up, but they rarely get the spotlight themselves, rather just being tacked on as part of a bigger talk on the field of music, at least in my (somewhat limited) experience. This album shows that to be an injustice. There isn't a bad song on this album, and it has a fair few of Steely Dan's biggest hits. Everything here feels like it is used perfectly, from run-time to instruments to Fagen's slightly abnormal singing style. Jazz and rock are two genres not put together enough, and every song on this album shows what that pairing can achieve. As is, Steely Dan deserve a higher seat at the table, because this album deserves a spot in the conversation so much more than what it gets. Exceptional album that remains ice-cold throughout, with a sound more should have tried to replicate since.

Well this one has become complicated for me. I came into this review feeling I knew exactly what I wanted to say: an album of two halves where the secular first half is much stronger than the religious backend that sees the album out. As somebody who doesn't carry the faith I can't say I enjoy the experience of being proselytised to in my music, so those last songs put a dampener on what was otherwise a strong outing with some very strong songs (Knoxville Girl is particularly good) that would see them up with the big stars of country in their age. However, looking at the track listing, it appears the traditional track list ends at 12, and the last four songs, the gospel tunes I drew umbrage with, are some form of later inclusion. It's quite frustrating given Spotify tacked these four one with marks of "Religious Overtones" compared to every other song marked as "Original Album", a change I didn't notice given I just hit play and put the phone in my pocket for the next hour. With that frustrating turn added my confidence in my rating is quite dashed. As such, I'll put myself out of my misery and put 3, which I was on the fence about before, for safety.

Again I draw some issue with this being listed in places as rock. Maybe some of their later stuff is more rock, it's not impossible, but this album is Britpop all the way down, and for the life of me I just don't get Britpop. I just don't understand the fascination with it; even after its era in the late 90s as the dominant sound has passed it's still considered one of the great sounds, with bands like Oasis remaining one of our move loved acts despite, well, all the mess Oasis causes generally. Super Furry Animals and Fuzzy Logic, to my ear at least, are not an exceptional example of the form. Rather, they are practitioners who are definitely good enough to survive when the music landscape was hospitable to Britpop, but as somebody not a fan in an era where new Britpop isn't really a thing, I don't have the capacity to give SFA any flowers they might deserve. Just not for me.

It’s always interesting to get an album that isn’t 5 stars but undeniably has 5 star songs. Bob Dylan isn’t an artist I’ve been overly familiar with nor had huge amounts of respect for, and while this album hasn’t fully converted me it’s definitely going to see some more of his work going into my titanic playlist. Subterranean Homesick Blues and Bob Dylan’s Dream are both phenomenal lyrically and musically (though one of my gripes with the album is the stranded take put at the start of Dream, I just don’t know why they chose to put that in). Throughout the album Dylan’s lyrical ability is superb; this album definitely doesn’t have a dull moment with how engaging and hard to predict many of these songs are despite a clear pattern and rhyme scheme. I find the album tails off towards the end and while and harmonica is an instrument I don’t always hold in high regard so it’s heavy lifting here can get a touch grating, as I say this album absolutely has 5 star songs its bulk are closer to 3 and 4. This is in no way a crime, but I wouldn’t feel right giving the album a 5 for the two songs I would alone. A very enjoyable listen, towards the top end of the albums I’ve given a four; my kingdom for a spectrum of 10 rather than five.

I wasn’t expecting much coming into this due to recent experiences with artists Griffith might be lumped in with, so I was pleasantly surprised. I am always a touch more cautious of singer-songwriters than I am bands; one person having so much control over a piece of work without balancing components can lead to less refined results, and I didn’t find this album anything too special, but that I enjoyed it was more than I was expecting Griffith’s got a great voice and her vocals shine through on this album, well deserving of the central stage they get. As somebody who isn’t a particular fan of country I again was thinking to trudge through this, but I ended up engaging with it more than I was expecting. I had a job to do that would have required me to turn my music off for a few minutes, and so I told myself “when this song ends, I’ll do it”. Each time a song ended and I missed the moment to cleanly pause it, the next song was compelling enough to roll the clause on to the end of this song, which even albums I didn’t like as much haven’t been able to achieve. Goin’ Gone eventually broke the spell and I thought nothing from then on was as gripping, but the first of the album was damn solid. Could have been a lot worse.

I sighed when this came up. I listened to SFA's debut album for this challenge two days ago. I had no prior knowledge of them and did not really enjoy what Fuzzy Logic gave me. That album wasn't really in danger of getting a 1, but having had to listen to them recently and this album coming up less than a week after that, I expected my goodwill for SFA to have run dry and sheer attrition to make me harsher to this later SFA album. I expected this to be a 1. I was pleasantly surprised to find Rings was a superior album to Fuzzy by pretty much all of my metrics. You can tell this album is by the same band, but it feels like they've transitioned with the times, moving out of an early Britpop phase into something more resembling the rock they're often labelled as, even if only when you squint. Fuzzy had no memorable songs looking back or ones I really enjoyed in the moment; Rings has the title-track which is a solid song and the attempts at other styles meant the track felt a lot more varied, with the electronic-inspired latter half of No Sympathy being a high-light. A much more well-rounded and unique album, and I am happy that this band has something a bit more for me, rather than putting them down as a band I don't like.

I couldn't have named a Pretenders song before I was given this album for yesterday. I certainly can't name the full album now, but progress is being made. An album without a dull moment and maybe (if we're being harsh, because I could easily understand somebody saying this album is all great songs) one, maybe two, tracks that didn't work for me. On a 10+ track album I had no expectations for that's damn impressive. Every song here feels distinct but coherent with the wider package; even the songs I would call my less preferred play a part that really makes it hard to dislike them. Great sound, very distinct vocal performance that lends the album a lot of extra personality, something blessedly different that kept me engaged for the full run, no small feat for a 3/4 hour album. An album that deserves its slot on this run even if it wouldn't perhaps normally be my thing, and isn't that what we all want this challenge to be?

I will often read the reviews of people who get to an album before me. It's often useful to know what the current perception of an album is. I bring this up because, here and there, I see people using their reviews as a space to review each song on the album, and give the songs a score individually, alongside an overall score on the album. That isn't how I review the albums myself, but if it was, and this was 10001 songs you must hear, rather than 1001 albums, and I got this album's 15 songs randomly interspersed with ten thousand other songs, I'm confident the average score of the songs put together would be higher than the 3 I give the overall album. A lot of the songs on this album I can tell are very good, and I do indeed like a good few (Clown Strike and You Tripped sitting at the top of the list), but a lot of them melt and flow together too much, and it can be hard to pull their identities apart and separate them back out into individual pieces, especially with 15 songs and nearly an hour-long runtime. I would say I like Elvis Costello, but a little goes a long way with him; I have a playlist and most of my time listening to music is spent listening to it on shuffle, Elvis Costello has 4 songs in it. The playlist is currently at 4100+ songs, so near enough to 1/1000 are Elvis Costello. To me, that feels about right. There's a good chance a song or two will find its way into that playlist from this album, and I will enjoy it when it comes up, but Brutal Youth is less than the sum of its parts. Pick your favourite song from the album and stick with it; you don't need to listen to the full album more than once.

I knew Chameleon well going into this, and liked the song and sound. With no further knowledge on Hancock I'd go so far as to call Chameleon essential listening and immediately knew why this album made the list. With that in mind when I saw the runtime and the fact it was made up of only 4 songs I was hoping for four Chameleons, because I knew if that's what I got I would like Head Hunters. That is, to dumb it down, essentially what I got, and absolutely no complaints from me. Superb jazz performed by superb musicians making each song distinct enough you can have a favourite whilst keeping everything tightly united and clearly intended to go together. Great pieces of music well executed. As much as I like jazz and think Hancock is a damn fine example of its strengths, all of which are on display on this album, I just don't personally resonate with it enough to give it full marks; I will be listening to Head Hunters again but not frequently and not soon and so it would feel disingenuous to give it the maximum rating. Having said that, this is probably one of the most technically well-crafted and polished albums I've encountered on this challenge so far, and anyone who does choose to give it 5 stars, I completely understand why.

I really want to like this album more than I do. I respect punk and post-punk as a very out there genre that holds a respectable niche, even if the general consensus amongst music fans tends to be punk was a cultural moment that is never going to be as strong as it once was and post-punk is a black sheep always outside of the mainstream. The good news in all this is that there are songs on this album that I liked. The bad news is that there were songs on this album I didn’t like, and I disliked those ones a lot more than I liked the songs I enjoyed. There are some… questionable choices made on this album. The initial shrill sound that takes up the first minute or so (I started the album when leaving work and genuinely thought I had set an alarm up until figuring out it was the song), the choice to put cheering on what to me was one of the album’s less interesting songs, and to me the least excusable of the lot: a song comprised so heavily of smashing glass. Sentimental Journey is one of my least favourite songs I’ve encountered on this whole journey, and I don’t exaggerate to say it is the main reason this album gets a 2 rather than a 3. I listened to this album twice for this review because I was quite on the fence, and SJ tanked my enjoyment of it. I do like songs on this album, and if this album was comprised fully of songs more in the vein of the title track, Non-Alignment Pact and Humor Me, modestly enjoyable songs I would individually give 3 stars to, this album would be stronger. I hope the next album I encounter in the genre is stronger than this.

The first time I sat down to write this I deleted it halfway through. Intentionally. It was going to be a 3 star review saying words to the effect of I listened to this in the middle of a hard task, I didn't give it my undivided attention and nothing grabbed me, so it can't have been anything remarkable. Some previous reviews have been similar; few of us can afford to but 30-60 minutes aside to give an album our undivided attention, especially if we miss a day and have to play catch-up. I don't fret over an album losing some prestige because I had to do something with it on. That didn't feel right this time; other albums that got that treatment I felt very little for, and I felt enough with this album to give it a better chance. So I listened to it again with less distraction. It's gained a point. I don't find as much new new wave music these days as I'd like, it's hardly a genre in fashion after all these days, but I've always had a soft spot for it. For the last five years I have told people Oingo Boingo are my favourite band. They might have slipped somewhat since potentially, but they're still at least top 3. The Cars, to my ear, sounded like a more mainstream form of Oingo Boingo, on some tracks more than others admittedly but the pedigree is definitely present. Don't Cha Stop is the highlight for me, but even the weakest song on the album is only as low as "good but not as strong as its siblings". Well worth going back and giving its day in court.

This album is definitely a difficult sound that takes some getting used to, but I was on board for side A. Ghost Rider and Rocket USA are strong openers that are relatively accessible for what the album becomes later on, and overall if the album ended at Girl I would probably like what we had here more. Then Frankie Teardrop comes along, an overly long song with a reliance on blind screaming in its second half. Screaming can absolutely be a valid instrument, even screaming without words as is the case here. A wall of sound can be a beneficial inclusion in a song depending on what you're going for. Here I feel the instruments on Frankie are too muffled in comparison with the screaming to remain effective; the first yell is good but the song soon devolves into nothing but mumbled vocals followed by a sharp scream. A 1 star song for my money. Che has similar excesses. Side A is probably a 4 star album. Side B is dancing on the fence of 1 and 2. I'll cut it somewhere down the middle, given I did enjoy the first songs quite a bit and wouldn't mind revisiting them, I'll just turn the album off when we get to the end of side A.

I'm noticing a pattern with rap and hip-hop albums on this list: these albums are dense. I don't mean the individual songs are particularly bulky whether I think they're individually good or bad, I mean these albums will run consistently 15+ songs compared to most having more in the region of 7-10. I don't dislike these genres, but I definitely seem to find myself enjoying them more in their early songs, then as the hour+ runtime drags off that enjoyment falls off sharply. Very little seems to be cut from these albums. A Little Deeper does not do something that I have taken umbrage with similar albums for: an excess of interludes (it has one at the start which isn't what interlude means but I think one is fine, even if it's really misplaced). That is good, and the first few tracks of this album are solid, my favourite being the opener. But then it just. Keeps. Going. The last song being 10 minutes is a smack in the face at that point. I would enjoy this album much more if it was 8-10 songs long, or even 2 albums made by splitting this one in half, as is the opening was its highlight and things rumbled on well after they should have stopped. Outtakes are a valuable part of a discography even if not as important, there's no shame in saving some of your darlings for it rather than ramming each and every baby of yours onto a CD together.