1001 Albums Summary

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 One of those weird averaging scores representative of neither extreme. Conceptually, poetically, lyrically damn near a 5—incredibly profound and moving stuff. This, if anything, is what will bring me back to You Want It Darker. Musically, instrumentally, it amounts to a stale 3, perhaps even a 2 sans vocals—there's nothing wrong with sparseness, per se, and Cohen's incredible, gruff voice and piano is often enough to carry the emotions, but after five songs or so, it sort of overstayed its welcome. This makes me feel like a shallow zoomer, maybe even one who's ontologically evil, especially given how much a thematically similar album like Blackstar means to me, hypocritically. This is a lyrical treasure, but musically falls flat, and I'm guessing Cohen hits harder with those oriented more towards the former. Me, I'm a feeler—the sound that words can't contain means more to me. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑, maybe even 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 from a more objective standpoint This album is such a blast—one of those sort of sonic variety feasts like People's Instinctive Travels, Paul's Boutique, or Midnite Vultures. Some real emotional breadth (and depth) too. Very funny, very sad, very sad and funny. My lack of a fifth star is only because—besides "So Fresh, So Clean" and "Mrs. Jackson," because I'm basic—very few songs, like, magically clicked/stood out from the symphony for me, even though they all had their own character. Maybe this was a mood thing, so the score may improve on another listen. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 Feels so unserious to write serious Funkadelic thoughts when I could just say "fried ice cream is a reality" but my tbh serious thoughts are that this is great—real, real great—and the only thing holding it back is that some jams genuinely feel too diffuse to sustain the groove nation. I prob just need another enema idk 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑, maybe less if not for the Unfunky UFO Feels crazy to rate this low after getting funked so funktastically in my earhole, but having loved "Unfunky UFO" and "Give Up The Funk" for my whole life, I'm almost a little disappointed by the inferior funkometer readings on most of the other tracks. Most of these grooves were sparser, slower, almost as if the tempo was about 10 bpm behind, and I wonder if it's the sort of thing that hits better when you're stoned? Sober, it's not nearly so hypnotic. But I cannot be clear enough that under no circumstances will I be giving up the funk. No three star rating could wash my goats Parliament 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑, rounded down to decrease nuance Another evil rating from me because, though the groove is in my heart and always has been, I was once again a little let down by the expectations set by the famous title track. The production is literally boiling over with joy and layered like a De La song on "Groove is in the Heart," and while there's plenty of hints to be had across the rest of the album, it's really just 90s dance loops—"Good Beat" isn't false advertising when it's the second song, but after forty minutes, the beat starts to feel a little less good. Like Parliament, maybe this hits better at the clerb and not overstimulated on the smelly RTD with a kid yankin ya hair. Nothing can bring down my deee-lite for "Groove Is In The Heart" itself but it shall remain a matchless paragon. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 duh 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑 (an uneven distribution of 1-4 star songs skewed by skeevy thievery) This score comes down to the context. I come from a Blur family, but I'm not so Jingoistic than I can't enter this with an open mind, and for the first five or so songs, I was having a good time—I'm not sure what's so special about Oasis, since I heard nothing other bands around this time weren't really doing, but they do that thing well and I was enjoying it. Once I got to Super Sonic, the Weezer-y, nineties, whiny guy schtick got to be a little bit insufferable, and I could tell even beneath the rock I live under that MTV rode some of these into the sunset. Even that, though, felt dubiously smarmy when certain harmonies hit, and I'll admit it—I sorta got it in glimmering moments of "Slide Away" and "Live Forever" (or was it "Up in the Sky"?). To me, in isolation, this is Oasis: cloying pop at worst, fiery rock at best. But here's the hitch: Oasis cannot exist in isolation. Ambushed by the opening riff of "Bang a Gong" retitled mega-hit "Cigarettes and Alcohol," I already felt territorial (and don't tell me it's because there's a limited amount of chords in rock and everyone's ripping everyone else off—there's coincidence, there's influence, and there's this, which anyone who's not a bad actor can plainly see), but this was before I read the lawsuit that ensued from "Shakermaker's" plagiarism, which made me feel like a chump for enjoying that song. I can—and not even that begrudgingly—forgive "Shakermaker" because it's clearly tongue-in-cheek parody, but knowing in retrospect that Noel and Liam Gallagher both thought they were the next John Lennon really limits my capacity for grace. Regardless of how hard they rock, or even how competently they can create a decent rock hook, knowing that these pompous blowhards got away with not only their plagiarism but their delusion of grandeur (still lauded by knowing music critics today) stacks me against this album. Two stars because of some fun performances and occasional bursts of talent, no more stars because they didn't create more originality with said talent. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 I've never heard a Kinks song I didn't like, but on an album without the drive of some of my favorite kinks hits and much topographical difference between songs, this album felt a little flat for me. Pretty much the definition of 3 stars in my book, which sounds meaner than I mean it. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 (rounded up for emotional impact) Opinions: how strange. As usual, I made the mistake of browsing global reviews for american dream before even viewing the album, which somehow manage to offend me even for albums I've never heard. Case in point: I really enjoy a few LCD soundsystem songs, but haven't heard a full album, and almost skipped this one were it not for the reviews' comparisons to Brian Eno, Talking Heads, and David Bowie (all of whom did it better, and therefore no one else can ever touch post-punk again). While I have a feeling it's sort of a mistake to have listened to their last album first, this, to me, reaffirmed that I'm an alien whose fundamental, emotional makeup must be different to consensus humanity, because I really resonated with whatever's going on here. Derivative or not, James Murphy's one uptight motherfucker and I'll stand for that flag—it adds a particularity to his rhythms that itches the meticulous instinct in me. Very precise, but not at the cost of the emotionality whatsoever. Certainly, that could be subject to change—there's actually a melancholy that always struck me about LCD Soundsystem, ever since I was a little kid, and it's something that I feel furtive approaching—it's not always something I want to immerse myself in given its glum droopiness. I'm gonna give this a four because a few songs really hit a spot for me, but compared with Remain in Light and Low (the other two fours at this point), it might fall just short—I'll have to listen again and see. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 I know nothing about him, but my latent, genetic snobbery instinctively turned its nose up at the name "Van Morrison." Upon listening, I was kind of blown away by how spellbound I was from track 3 on. I feel a little sheepish about it because of how overtly cheesy his borderline scatting free-styling is, but the orchestration was so atmospheric and gorgeous. No one song really stood out, which kind of just makes the album a folk-jazz slurry. However, I know I'm pretty susceptible to saccharine sixties sounds on a first listen and I regret any interest later, so I have a feeling this score will drop. I'm a weird voice enjoyer, so the fact that I already find his vocals a little grating means things are bound to fall off between me and Astral Weeks eventually. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 OH NOOOOO, OH PLEASE GOD HELP ME!!!!! When I was an angsty thirteen year old and Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Wolfmother were my lifeblood, I thought this album—even that first song—was just okay, a little slow for my liking. Why then, have I kept waking up with little licks of "N.I.B," "The Wizard," "Wicked World," and "Behind the Wall of Sleep" stuck in my head for nearly the next thirteen years of my life? A fantastic album, especially considering the historical context. My rating would be higher, but I had to hold myself back and admit this album does meander quite a bit, squiggling over into Iommi spaghetti or else devolving into sort of yawning, atmospheric sections without much resolution. For as strong of a debut as this is, they wouldn't be the Black Sabbath everyone pretends to know and love without Paranoid first. But still—incredible start. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 Huge Julian Cope fan, slightly less huge Echo and the Bunnymen fan, blossoming Smiths fan, and I already liked "Sleeping Gas," but even with all that stacked in its favor I felt wary going into "Kilimanjaro." No matter how many great bands coalesced after the balkanization of The Teardrop Explodes, I just had a feeling it'd be too early for any of their individual strengths to have shown through. Okay, that said, I did enjoy this a little more than I expected, though I think it plateaus pretty hard after the first few songs and eventually disintegrates. Tacking on the EP starting with "Reward" at the end of the official release definitely doesn't help. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 (rounded down because I don't see myself listening often) People are so rude dude! So many of the global reviews are passing this by blasé or downplaying its accomplishment as "amateur" and "teenage" as if it didn't erupt near-fully realized from the brain of a nineteen-year-old boy. Have any of them birthed an unfiltered, unique vision like this? Every human has one swimming somewhere beneath the surface, that I'm sure of, but so few know to treat them like a newborn baby. Okay, maybe a rough-and-tumble toddler with superpowers like being impervious to rocks or snooty commentary. Even still—I get so offended sometimes for music I don't even like because someone saw into another person's soul and said they didn't like the look of it. Huh! My reviews are based on my own resonance with something, and unless said something is obviously corporate lab-grown crap or imitation meat (or unless it really, really hurts somebody), I try to keep my ratings fair. But I don't need to explain myself, because I'm the only one who sees these anyway besides Emily (hi Emily) so it's really just ramblings. And not even about Tubular Bells! Maybe it's because I don't listen to a lot of prog rock, but for 1973 (even if it was post-Pink Floyd), this composition has such startling range. Really hypnotic and mature at times, other times crass and abrasive, and the transitions between these swings are often decently smooth. I'll have to listen again sometime to be sure, but honestly, I'd play this to get into a creative state of mind, do homework, write, or even just to enjoy the atmosphere. The growling section might challenge that, but honestly, after the way everyone described it, you'd think they'd never heard any metal—pearl-clutching, honestly. I mean, what do these people listen to?! 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑, maybe even 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 (rounded up for emotional impact) For as much as I love TV on the Radio, I haven't listened to a full album of theirs save for their latest, Seeds, so this is as good a place to start as any. Incredible sound on this one, but it would've ranked higher if there were more individual standout songs, I think. "Staring at the Sun" could be a top 100 song for me, and is most certainly in my top 1001 songs, so it's a lot of pressure, but few songs felt like something I'd listen to separately, if that makes sense. Still a really fascinating atmosphere (I miss the moodiness of early TVOTR) and I will be listening again. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑, though may well have been a 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 if I was in a worse mood So I only knew of Patti Smith, as it turns out, from a song title I will not be writing out here, but luckily I had forgotten long enough to leave my impression of Horses untarnished. One thing with Punk that seems to hold true even as far back as this proto-punk is that it can sound a little flat without a lot of drive and a properly monotone yell, and at its worst, I think Horses is that. Not at its worst, interestingly, are the nine-minute, fervent, spoken-word that I suspect have incited many an eye roll since the seventies. I, to my own surprise, kind of dug them—they're the kind of thing I think I was socialized to dislike but have really come around to now that I've fully embraced my own pretentiousness. The first and last songs are the only ones I can see myself coming back to frequently, but that's more than I was expecting from this album—really fun and exciting. This Patti Smith gal is really something, hope she doesn't have any controversial takes on race in her future! 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑, rounded up for repeat enjoyment For someone who's always yakkin about British music, I've heard shamefully little pulp, and wouldn't have given Richard Hawley a second glance were it not for the connection. For an album global reviewers called "the most British thing ever," though, I'm a bit disappointed—this was, like, the most American British thing ever. I was pleasantly surprised by this Roy Orbison / Chris Isaak sound, though it skewed a bit too Sinatra for me at times. I'm not sure I'd listen to the whole thing through again (though it was very peaceful), but there are at least three standouts for me, which is big. Big stuff happening across the pond. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌗🌑🌑🌑 (rounded up because it isn't, like, evil) I'm not gonna remember it exactly, but there's a Brian Eno quote I often think about that says, essentially, that the qualities of songs we're nostalgic for, or that we feel the strongest connection to, are when the music is straining against the technology of the time. Grainy record static, compressed MP3s, etc—these things come to define a sound because (and this is my extrapolation) the feeling is struggling to reach through the imperfect materiality of the medium. After seeing some mediocre reviews, I was ready to go to bat for this album—one which I normally might've skipped. What a surprise that I come to find my opinion is actually significantly lower than global consensus, which sucks because John Lee Hooker is legendary and because this is such a kickass album cover. That said, this music isn't really John Lee Hooker, is it? This is a collaboration album, and by my estimation, there are way too many cooks in the kitchen, and also, most of them aren't even cooks and they're just cracking eggs because they've seen cooks do that before. The majority of this album is certified middle-aged barfly band material, and I'm fairly certain it's because this blues ain't straining. Much as it must have been futuristic for Hooker, the production is painfully eighties, and clean electric guitar and tepid percussion belong nowhere near the blues—one might even argue electricity belongs nowhere near the blues, but I'd say it just doesn't work without distortion. It isn't my interpretation of Eno's quote that music isn't worthwhile if it's not innovating, nor do I even feel Hooker isn't innovating on The Healer—for him, I bet that's exactly what these collaborations were for. However, here's where something went wrong: either this chance to collaborate with a blues legend meant collaborators toned *down* their younger innovative urges, or, on the other end of the spectrum, they perceived the cleanliness of their era's production as an improvement on the dirtiness of blues. I'm not sure which went wrong, exactly, but this feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of the genre they're working with. Even his three solo tracks that close this album seem to misunderstand this, if I can go so far as to say John Lee Hooker momentarily misunderstood the blues (and secure my cell in Hell)—though they're much closer to the feeling than any of that Santana crap, they lose some of their power in such a relaxed, soft, sonic setting. The blues is rugged, mournful, feral—it can't be caged, but apparently, it can be domesticated. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 right now, may descend to a 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 depending on my mood and repeat listens So I knew it was a terrible idea to start with Leonard Cohen's last album/magnum opus as per this list, but I'm glad to have still given his first album a chance. Since my wretched vice is looking at global reviews before seeing what I think for myself, I always end up with some standoffish opinion based on the loudest consensus, and Songs of Leonard Cohen is no exception. Oddly enough, my hesitation is because of a five-star review, and once again, guilt for not really "getting" what's so emotional for people. I've had this working theory going into these albums that thinking-oriented people enjoy lyric-oriented and sparser music (ranging from folk to rap) because there's generally a logical (even if artful) articulation of the feeling being conveyed, whereas feeling-oriented people enjoy musically-oriented, uh, music because sound is a pre-rational expression of feeling that cuts past the ego. Granted, there's more to it—I feel like technically impressive musical acrobatics also tend to be enjoyed by more thinking folks—but I've been pretty assured by this claim until I saw a five-star review of Songs of Leonard Cohen saying the opposite. Essentially, their deal is that because lots of non-english speakers get Leonard Cohen, you have to feel him first, and so more feeling-oriented people like him. Well, coming from the feeling camp, now I'm a poser, because I'm not totally overwhelmed by the connection. Clearly, it's more complicated than I thought. That's not to say I didn't like Songs of Leonard Cohen (duh)—both musically and lyrically, this was a really interesting experience. Like most folk music I know, there'll be notes of weirdness that I wish they'd crank up like 25% more—as it currently is, the subtlety only allows for twinges of off-kilter emotions, which isn't really enough to bathe in. That said, I bet this would've been spellbinding to see live, and maybe that's the component I'm missing. Even so, there were lines that I'd ooh and ah at, consider sending to a friend or pinning on the fridge, and the sparseness of the music largely benefited the atmosphere it was aiming for. Essentially, this is a textbook 4 as per my scale—technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally. However, considering I've only rated 4s so far, that's about the best I could expect anyone to do, so go gettem, Leo. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 This is one of those ratings that's an average—there's some two moments and some four moments, and I have to settle somewhere in between. I only knew (and loved) the song "A Pagan Place" from The Waterboys so this piqued my curiosity, but I left with mixed feelings. On the one hand, something triggered a cheesiness reaction in me, and I felt like I wasn't supposed to enjoy the parts I was enjoying because of the twang, the lyrics, or the unabashed scatting. I mean, as good as that jam was, does it really eclipse sort of Van Morrison-ing the entirety of "Blackbird" in the middle of it? On the other hand, yea, that jam really was good, as was much of the rock fiddling for many of these songs—the spirit was high and, as I feel like I say too much in these things, I bet it'd be easy to get swept up dancing to these songs live. Things really began to get grating around "And a Bang on the Ear," which I was relieved was coming to an end lyrically about five minutes in until I realized we were barely halfway through. By the end of the album, I had four songs saved and more conflict than I'd expected, so I listened to "A Pagan Place" again and realized that this is what was missing from Fisherman's Blues: the reverence, the joy, that elevated the already excellent instrumentation. Without it, this seems like great music to enjoy live but, for me, not to revisit. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 I'd heard four songs off of the album before I listened to this one, three of which I'd say are the album's best, so odds seemed stacked slightly against Strangeways for exceeding my expectations. How did they do it? Those Smiths kept up their momentum until the last three songs or so, and even "I Won't Share You"—the fourth I'd heard—will I'm sure hit just right when the right time hits. The only reason this isn't higher is because nothing is like, transcendentally good (although "Unhappy Birthday" comes close), otherwise this would be an easy 5. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 Not the easiest 4 of my life only because I so wanted to give this a 5. If they could've kept up the momentum of the first half this wouldn't been perfect, but as much as I love "Lava" or "There's a Moon in the Sky Called the Moon" or even that cover of "Downtown" everyone seems to hate, it wears a little thin after a bit. Still a monumental altar of weirdness and I love them so much H.I. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 (rounded up because I know I'm being too cautious, but truly, I wish I could give this an actual 2.5 exactly) Love Tom Waits's voice, the jazz instrumentation is really smooth, and the atmosphere, overall, is great, but I'm having some reservations about this one. It should bug me how much of a performance he's putting on—like, I know all music is performance, but I hate when someone is trying to be someone else so hard. Except—and I'm not sure about this, especially given the length of this album—I don't find it all that grating. It's almost, like, sooo overdone that it becomes like a cartoon character. The dimwitted goon laugh, the lisp, the ashtray, the slurred murmuring... it was just so rich that it sort of became enjoyable. True, some cracks started showing in the inconsistent humor and more inconsistent accent, but I guess my disbelief was sufficiently suspended. Still, there's some discomfort in the fact that he's obviously doing some kind of blaccent? And even more discomfort in the fact that I'm less bugged by this and more bugged by the runtime. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 (rounded up for the first four songs—four fives) I'm in a weird, in-between space with R.E.M.—I don't like them, exactly, after years of feeling endlessly peeved hearing them captive in my parents' car, but I'm almost defensive of them because of their familiarity. Maybe I just got Stockholmed again, but I've really come around to a lot of their music, and, to their credit, most of the songs of theirs I've always liked are on this album. Actually, the first four songs are classics of my childhood that I really treasure. Hearing them back to back, I was almost convinced this album had all-timer momentum, but unfortunately, the rest was pretty middling. Maybe I'll come around to it the way I've come around to the rest of R.E.M., but for those first songs alone, this gets 3.5. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 I come from a Blur family, like I might've mentioned impartially in my Oasis review, so this comparatively mediocre rating surprised me—as was, again, the bands' chilling similarities. Both really put the "pop" in Britpop more than I'd naïvely expected (I know, but considering Damon Albarn's later innovations with Gorillaz and Blur's later innovations with albums like 13 or Think Tank), and both really take a little too much from their predecessors (though Blur's Bowie thievery on "Girls and Boys"—hey, didn't LCD Soundsystem also yoink from that one? And St. Vincent?—feels miles more forgivable than "Cigarettes and Alcohol" because at least these Boys and Girls did something different). I'd even say they were thematically similar, though I'm not sure if Blur yoinked that from Oasis, Britpop on Britpop violence style. Ultimately, this one comes out on top because it's already so much more creative and adventurous than I'd expect from a pop record, even if it pales in comparison to what Blur would later do. I found the pop-ness of Parklife to be a little much at times (maybe it was just my mood), but even today I couldn't deny they were having fun. I still downloaded the whole thing—not sure if I'll listen again many times, but I will at least once. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 When I discovered Nilsson Schmilsson a few years ago, it was because I kept finding cool and seemingly unrelated-sounding songs all from the same album. This, by the way, includes the infamous "Lime in the Coconut" song, which is, annoying as it is, also maybe the best song on the album, and certainly the bravest, and I will defend (almost) everything about it—a genuinely eerie and wild and funny song. Once I'd found three or so that I loved, I knew it was time for me to listen to the album. Unfortunately—with the DISTINCT exception of "Jump into the Fire"—most everything else didn't quite have the same sauce as the three I'd heard previously. Quite similarly to REM's Green, I think I have so much fondness for the now-four songs off of Nilsson Schmilsson that it radiates outwards to the album as a whole, even though I'm uncertain if I'll ever listen to the album as a whole again. I wouldn't write it off, but for all of Nilsson's delightful weirdness, he's just as much El Cornballer, making the popular Beatles comparisons weak to me. Still great, though. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 Really interesting and fun—not to mention referenced so many times by artists I love that it felt instantly familiar—but not something I see myself returning to. As dynamic as the musicianship is, the music itself doesn't feel all that dynamic to me. If I were to return to it, I'd check out 4, 5, or 2, though—maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for them. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 (rounded down based on average of every song) I all-caps LOVE "Criminal" and "Shadowboxer"—o such drama! extended jams! et cetera!—so I was really excited to dive into this album, but unfortunately, it seems I heard the best tracks first (many such cases). Fiona Apple has an incredible persona, her lyrics are raw, and this singer-songwriter piano style was the perfect place to wring that rawness out of. I really think that energy could've carried this album all the way through, but (even with great lyrics) I think the momentum died down by the end. This rating may bump significantly if I let it sink in, though, because "Sleep to Dream," "Pale September," and "Carrion" were all musically interesting enough that I'd revisit them, and "Sullen Girl" and "The Child is Gone" felt very emotionally compelling enough that I might as well listen to them again, too, and that's the whole album, I guess. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 (rounded down because #beatmickjaggertodeath) I wouldn't say I'm a Rolling Stones defender but when they hit it, they hit it, and I think that'll be harder to deny on some of the later albums of this list. That said, "Under My Thumb?" "Stupid Girl?" Even if they're supposed to be tongue in cheek... are they funny? Deeply rapey aura radiating off of these second-rate Kinks. Actually, I think this could've been on par with the star higher Kinks album we just heard, as it would suffer from the same "good but forgettable" feeling were it not for, you know, the rapeyness. If I were a truely moral and good person, any rapeyness would result in a reduction to, uh, zero stars, but unfortunately, perverts are allowed to write good music. Cis man opinion out 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 (rounded up because come on) I was not expecting this to be my first five stars—like, at all—but I'll qualify it by saying this five stars is different from any I've anticipated. I am not a live album guy, but this feels like the difference between judging a painting and a photo, or music vs. a documentary about music. The fact that the album is live IS why it's so good, and the energy between Johnny and his audience takes a great set and makes it an experience, which sounds like ChatGPT but it's just true. I was like, "why I am moved by this Christian stuff," but it's because Christianity only hits when there's persecution it's resisting, and that's what makes this so great, you know? I think if this had caught me in a worse mood, I would've felt Cash's prison references were heavy-handed pandering (especially considering he'd never been to jail) and that turning "Folsom Prison Blues" into like a cheerful theme song sours the whole thing, but in whatever bout of sentimentality I'm in the midst of, it felt sincere and sincerely moving. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 Once again dumbfounded by how much this album upset everyone listening. From the reviews you'd think this was ten hours of chainsaw revving, orgasms, and chewing noises interspersed with dissonant choral harmonies. With the exception, I gotta admit, of "Thriller!" (which did not earn its exclamation point) and "Blow Daddy-O," this wasn't really all that avant-garde. Squirrelly, maybe, but really only like 20% more than, say, Television (which I think is the missing soundalike to balance out everyone's Talking Heads take). Much as I feel that reactionary urge, I'm not gonna give it five stars or anything to balance everybody out—I thought it was cool, fun, and inventive, but it's not something I think I'd revisit. There were three or so songs I liked where their groove cut through the dissonance, and there were also songs I actively disliked because it felt like they were trying too hard to be obnoxious (whatever that drunken sailor business was). Absolutely worthwhile inclusion, and not something to get anyone's feathers ruffled over. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 (should be a star higher given historical context but could go half a star lower on enjoyment) Sacrilegiously, this is fine. Elvis has a great voice, inspired some of the best musicians of all time, and, uh, was tactically deployed by record labels to make "black music" palatable, which is why he has soooo many covers. That's obviously bad, but I'm not trying to make a statement with my rating or anything—maybe I'm not woke enough, but that doesn't seem like something I want to pin on Elvis himself. Whoever chose these songs to cover had palatability in mind, though, because they're all pretty bland, man. I feel like the Elvis I like has a bit more of a blues edge to it—at the very least a crunch or a different key. There just doesn't seem to be much going on with this one, you know? 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 (rounded down for exhaustion) Went out on a limb with this one and was kind of disappointed about it. I normally love this type of music, which might be why I'm so harsh on it, but this feels like it's sort of the flattest version of 60s hard rock. Though the sounds are similar, this and Hendrix are night and day, right? And sure, maybe it's evil to compare Hendrix to this, but I mean... I don't know... Sabbath? Love? I don't know man. The vocals were fun and the guitars were fun but boy did nothing come of them. Ran me down by the end of it and put me in a bad mood. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 Really fun, may deserve a half-star more, but I can't see myself revisiting a ton of these songs (though I think I'd come back to more than I've decided now). I'd only heard "Love Spreads" from Severance as well as "I Wanna Be Adored" and "Fool's Gold" from this album but I think "Love Spreads" in particular gave me a false impression of how rockin' Stone Roses would be because I'm always disappointed they're not rockin' like that. Still, I could come to appreciate how nineties psychedelic this is. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 (though could easily be 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 were I not feeling so magnanimous) Where do I know Pretenders from?? I swear I know at least one of their songs, but their sound is so generically early eighties that I can't place them. This cheesy, clean production on punk is one marked step towards its commercialization, but I'm kind of a sucker for this. The frontwoman is doing a B-52s, dare I say a Frank-n-furter, with her delivery, and even though she's not exactly possessed by the Rocky Horror spirit I can't say it wasn't fun. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 (rounded down, but with the potential to be rounded up if I were in a different mood). This is a very similar situation to Deee-Lite—I loved the most popular (and, I think, objectively best) song on the album, "Praise You," but found the rest of the offerings to be a lot more repetitive and less detailed than the single in question. This felt a little better than Deee-Lite and I have a feeling if I wasn't so tired I'd really enjoy it, but I'm having trouble convincing myself to go back and listen again. It seems like the sort of thing I'd have to already be in a dance trance to get. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 Having already heard "London Calling," "Rudie Can't Fail," and "Train in Vain (Stand By Me)," I was expecting between a 3 and a 3.5. Dead on, for once, because every other song sounds pretty much the same. That's sort of harsh, but I really wanted to like this more given how extensive its influences are and how extensive its influence on music going forward would be. They have so much potential, and I guess I was expecting to hear more of it expressed—I think my favorite songs were all the ones that stood out a bit, but none really beat "Train In Vain" for me. I hate the posturing of Punk, so all the reviews that are calling the Clash a "boy band" or "nepo babies" aren't people I exactly want to side with, but also... I mean, they're not that far off, especially considering how close to early brit-pop this seems. Still a fun listen, just a bit overlong for something so samey. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 Much like with Pere Ubu, how could this possibly be one of the lowest ranked albums of THOUSANDS? Sheryl Crow is higher than this?? I don't mean to be one of those dudes, but genuinely, you can't handle a little dissonance?! This was pretty fun, although as usual, I think 47 minutes at this level of noise with little variance is pushing it. That said, every song has its own character and I enjoyed that. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 (rounded up because I was still feeling it) So many aspects of this feel like something I like, something I should like—hell, they even sound like a lot of bands I do like—but I can't nail down what the difference really is, or even what the soundalikes are. Somehow there was energy and not feeling, which killed any momentum for me despite some decently driving guitars. Was bobbing my head to a lot of it but I didn't feel the need to save any. Very cusp. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 Once again helplessly screaming into the void at internet normoids who think this is just noise. THIS is just noise? And this is, I would say, pretty objective incredulity, because a lot of the jazzy riffing happens over a really consistent foundation. Like, the rhythm is fairly clear, is it not? No wonder The Birthday Party and Pere Ubu are unlistenable to some people. I have never felt the need to use sensitive derogatorily before this, but man... My expectations were set so transcendentally high for A Love Supreme that I knew I'd be let down somehow. I even tried to temper my expectations—I knew I'd have to when I read the review of the guy saying he went in skeptically but was crying halfway through Psalm—it's just that as such a feeling person, I want to deeply feel what others feel and be a part of all that feeling, you know? Anyways, I was worried it wasn't gonna click during Parts 1 & 2, but things really kicked into high gear in 3 & 4, which is when I knew this needed a second listen. Granted, I'm not sure it felt like God was in my ears or anything (although everything will pale in comparison if that's your standard), but I'm hoping by my second or third listen I'll really catch the feeling. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 (rounded up because I liked her voice) What am I missing here? I chose to listen to this one because I'd heard "Son of a Preacher Man" before (and, unwittingly, the Mel Tormé cover of "Windmills of your Mind"), but it turns out that was sort of the one "big" song on an otherwise silky, lush record. Neither of those things are bad, though I found them to be a bit played out by the end. This isn't the first time I've really wanted to like this era of Soul, but it just feels a bit too cheesy for me after a while—the luster wears off so fast because, I think, it's one-dimensional, but I'm sure they'd have my head for that. Like I said, Dusty Springfield herself has a great persona, and the strings are too nice overall for me to rate this as anything below 2.5 stars, but it just didn't do a lot for me. Considering how much this album seems to mean for so many people, I wish it did more. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 (rounded up because come on) DEVOBRIANENO!! I have been anticipating this album since we started this list (although two months isn't all that long compared to the, like, three thousand years we have until we finish the list), and judging from how balls-to-the-wall Satisfaction, Mongoloid, and Gut Feeling are, I was expecting this to be a solid four. Unfortunately, this one's yet another where I'd heard all of my favorite songs first, though not nearly as severe a case as, say, Clash's London Calling, most recent- and egregious-ly. This one was a lot of fun and scratches the uptightness itch I have for most post-punk stuff. Between Devo and Talking Heads, a lot of my faves owe a lot of their fame to this period (Oingo Boingo? They Might Be Giants? XTC? The Feelies?). Maybe it's not the most technically inventive, but that's never what makes an album great. The way they destroy "Gut Feeling" and then coalesce again is THE. SHIT. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 (rounded up for the cohesive whole) GOD DAYUM!!!! Nighthawks at the Diner can kiss my ass! So glad I gave Tom Waits another chance, because Bone Machine is just incredible. I don't know what makes this click more than, say, my middling reaction to Pere Ubu (though the fact that I keep mentioning them is worth something), but the totally bizarre parts of this album still coalesce into a zero-miss lineup. I tried to like this a lot less than I did, but I was giddier with each new track. Delightfully creepy, miraculously dissonant, and surprisingly emotional in its highs and lows for a piss-drunk ghoul repeatedly slamming the silverware drawer. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing