1001 Albums Summary

First time listening to a Simon & Garfunkel album end to end, and it was a consistently pleasant listen. A short, mellow and inoffensive 28 minutes, that I can appreciate without ever wanting to listen again

An enjoyable listen, with the singles (Hungry, Rio, Save a Prayer) well supported by the album tracks, with The Chauffeur adding a surprising twist at the end. 80s synth pop done well

An interesting listen, as there seems to be a trend of hitting flawed debut albums of future superstars. This is far from their best work, but you can hear sprinklings of their potential in a brisk, energetic album

A classic - not their best (I feel like Doolittle is a more consistent album) but a breathless, aggressive display of raw punk

Despite a handful of strong songs, this is one of their weaker albums - the rock swagger overshadowed by more piano-led melodies, and it loses some of their charm and energy as a result

First time listening, and can't believe I hadn't come across it before. An hour's worth of good beats and quickfire storytelling passes quickly - excellent album

A really, really hard listen - getting through this was a challenge

Holds up well, largely because it's a bunch of accessible, catchy songs that are well produced - nothing new but a solid listen

There's certain types of art that I can appreciate the talent, but also recognise that it's not for me. Would have made for an entertaining film score, but it wasn't compelling enough for me to listen to in isolation

I've found it hard to understand why this album didn't click for me, but it just felt too monotone, too uneventful, too overindulgent to move me. Looking forward to some of his other albums on this list to see if anything changes for me

Really enjoyed their first two albums, but found this one somewhat underwhelming. Surprised it made it onto the list

Enjoyed reading about their origins more than I enjoyed listening to them. It was a pulsating listen, and although their style would have been innovative and influential at the time, it doesn't stand out so much now. Enjoyable but forgettable

With the caveat that I came into this liking the smiths and disliking Morissey, it was difficult to come into this without bias. That being said, the lyrics were torturous, the melodies passable and the vocals draining

This may be projection, but I really recognise my adhd brain in this album - the occasional melodies are quickly disrupted (sometimes effectively, more often painfully) with all sorts of experimentation. A lot to admire but unfortunately too often obscured by chaos

Nope

If beige and vanilla gave birth to an inoffensive, mundane baby that grew up and decided to create an inoffensive, mundane album full of plodding tracks that made me look up why Spotify don’t have a feature to play songs at 1.5x or 2x the speed (I think at least have the songs would have benefited from having an actual tempo, and the other half would have benefited from me halving the amount of time I wasted on them). This was on course for a dreary 2 star review, until I discovered that they had the temerity to hide an actual song, one with an actual tempo, an actual beat, and using instruments not stolen from an outdated school music room, as a hidden track at the end. A barely deserved one star.